[See  page    73 


THE    AUDUBON    DRAWINGS 


A    KENTUCKY    CARDINAL 

B 


BY 


JAMES   LANE   ALLEN 

AUTHOR  OF  "THE  BLUE-GRASS  REGION  OP  KENTUCKY'1 
''FLUTE  AND  VIOLIN"  ETC. 


ILLUSTRATED 


NEW     YORK 

HARPER    &    BROTHERS    PUBLISHERS 
1895 


BY  JAMES   LANE   ALLEN. 


THE  BLUE-GRASS  REGION  OF  KENTUCKY.  Il 
lustrated.  8vo,  Cloth,  $2  50. 

FLUTE  AND  VIOLIN,  AND  OTHER  KENTUCKY 
TALES  AND  ROMANCES.  Illustrated.  Post  8vo, 
Cloth,  $1  50  ;  Silk  Binding,  $2  25. 

PUBLISHED  BY  HARPER  &  BROTHERS,  NEW  YORK. 

B3T  For  sale  by  all  booksellers,  or  will  be  sent  by  the 
publishers  to  any  part  of  the  United  States,  Canada,  or 
Mexico,  on  receipt  of  price. 


Copyright,  1894,  by  HARPER  &  BROTHERS. 
All  rights  reserved. 


K 


Befcfcation 

This  to  her  from  one  who  in  childhood  used  to  stand 
at  the  windows  of  her  room  and  watch  for  the  Cardinal 
among  the  snow-buried  cedars. 


267951 


ILLUSTRATIONS 


THE  AUDUBON  DRAWINGS Frontispiece 

MY  RAIN  CROW Page    8 

"  MY  MOCKING-BIRD !" Facing     "      10 

"'YOU  COULDN'T.     I  AM  YOUR   GUEST'" "          "54 


A  KENTUCKY  CARDINAL 


A  KENTUCKY  CARDINAL 


V  f  LL  tllis  New-year's  Day  of  1850  the 
rsj.-A-  sun  shone  cloudless  but  wrought 
no  thaw.  Even  the  landscapes  of  frost  on 
the  window-panes  did  not  melt  a  flower,  and 
the  little  trees  still  keep  their  silvery  boughs 
arched  high  above  the  jewelled  avenues. 
During  the  afternoon  a  lean  hare  limped 
twice  across  the  lawn,  and  there  was  not  a 
creature  stirring  to  chase  it.  Now  the  night 
is  bitter  cold,  with  no  sounds  outside  but 
the  cracking  of  the  porches  as  they  freeze 
tighter.  Even  the  north  wind  seems  grown 


too  numb  to  move.  I  had  determined  to 
convert  its  coarse,  big  noise  into  something 
sweet  —  as  may  often  be  done  by  a  little 
art  with  the  things  of  this  life  —  and  so 
stretched  a  horse-hair  above  the  opening  be 
tween  the  window  sashes;  but  the  soul  of  my 
harp  has  departed.  I  hear  but  the  comfortable 
roar  and  snap  of  hickory  logs,  at  long  inter 
vals  a  deeper  breath  from  the  dog  stretched 
on  his  side  at  my  feet,  and  the  crickets  under 
the  hearth-stones.  They  have  to  thank  me 
for  that  nook.  One  chill  afternoon  I  came 
upon  a  whole  company  of  them  on  the  west 
ern  slope  of  a  woodland  mound,  so  lethargic 
that  I  thumped  them  repeatedly  before  they 
could  so  much  as  get  their  senses.  There 
was  a  branch  near  by,  and  the  smell  of  mint 
in  the  air,  so  that  had  they  been  young  Ken- 
tuckians  one  might  have  had  a  clew  to  the 
situation.  With  an  ear  for  winter  minstrelsy, 
I  brought  two  home  in  a  handkerchief,  and 


assigned  them  an  elegant  suite  of  apartments 
under  a  loose  brick. 

But  the  finest  music  in  the  room  is  that 
which  streams  out  to  the  ear  of  the  spirit  in 
many  an  exquisite  strain  from  the  hanging 
shelf  of  books  on  the  opposite  wall.  Every 
volume  there  is  an  instrument  which  some 
melodist  of  the  mind  created  and  set  vibrat 
ing  with  music,  as  a  flower  shakes  out  its 
perfume  or  a  star  shakes  out  its  light.  Only 
listen,  and  they  soothe  all  care,  as  though  the 
silken-soft  leaves  of  poppies  had  been  made 
vocal  and  poured  into  the  ear. 

Towards  dark,  having  seen  to  the  comfort 
of  a  household  of  kind,  faithful  fellow-beings, 
whom  man  in  his  vanity  calls  the  lower  ani 
mals,  I  went  last  to  walk  under  the  cedars  in 
the  front  yard,  listening  to  that  music  which 
is  at  once  so  cheery  and  so  sad — the  low  chirp 
ing  of  birds  at  dark  winter  twilights  as  they 
gather  in  from  the  frozen  fields,  from  snow- 


buried  shrubbery  and  hedge-rows,  and  settle 
down  for  the  night  in  the  depths  of  the  ever 
greens,  the  only  refuge  from  their  enemies 
and  shelter  from  the  blast.  But  this  evening 
they  made  no  ado  about  their  home-coming. 
To-day  perhaps  none  had  ventured  forth.  I 
am  most  uneasy  when  the  red-bird  is  forced 
by  hunger  to  leave  the  covert  of  his  cedars, 
since  he,  on  the  naked  or  white  landscapes  of 
winter,  offers  the  most  far-shining  and  beau 
tiful  mark  for  Death.  I  stepped  across  to  the 
tree  in  which  a  pair  of  these  birds  roost  and 
shook  it,  to  make  sure  they  were  at  home,  and 
felt  relieved  when  they  fluttered  into  the  next 
with  the  quick  startled  notes  they  utter  when 
aroused. 

The  longer  I  live  here,  the  better  satisfied 
I  am  in  having  pitched  my  earthly  camp-fire, 
gypsylike,  on  the  edge  of  a  town,  keeping  it 
on  one  side,  and  the  green  fields,  lanes,  and 
woods  on  the  other.  Each,  in  turn,  is  to  me 


as  a  magnet  to  the  needle.  At  times  the 
needle  of  my  nature  points  towards  the  coun 
try.  On  that  side  everything  is  poetry.  I 
wander  over  field  and  forest,  and  through 

'  O 

me  runs  a  glad  current  of  feeling  that  is  like 
a  clear  brook  across  the  meadows  of  May. 
At  others  the  needle  veers  round,  and  I  go 
to  town — to  the  massed  haunts  of  the  high 
est  animal  and  cannibal.  That  way  nearly 
everything  is  prose.  I  can  feel  the  prose 
rising  in  me  as  I  step  along,  like  hair  on  the 
back  of  a  dog,  long  before  any  other  dogs 
are  in  sight.  And,  indeed,  the  case  is  much 
that  of  a  country  dog  come  to  town,  so  that 
growls  are  in  order  at  every  corner.  The 
only  being  in  the  universe  at  which  I  have 
ever  snarled,  or  with  which  I  have  rolled 

over  in  the  mud  and  fought  like  a  common 

o 

cur,  is  Man. 

Among    my    neighbors    who    furnish   me 
much  of  the  plain  prose  of  life,  the  nearest 


hitherto  has  been  a  bachelor  named  Jacob 
Mariner.  I  called  him  my  rain-crow,  because 
the  sound  of  his  voice 
awoke  apprehensions  of 
falling  weather.  A  visit 
from  him  was  an  endless 
drizzle.  For  Jacob  came 
over  to  expound  his  mi 
nute  symptoms  ;  and  had 
everything  that  he  gave 
out  on  the  subject  of  hu 
man  ailments  been  writ 
ten  down,  it  must  have 
made  a  volume  as  large, 
as  solemn,  and  as  incon 
venient  as  a  family  Bible. 
My  other  nearest  neigh 
bor  lives-  across  the  road — • 
a  widow,  Mrs.  Walters.  I 
call  Mrs.  Walters  my  mocking-bird,  because 
she  reproduces  by  what  is  truly  a  divine  ar- 


"MY  RAIN-CROW' 


rangement  of  the  throat  the  voices  of  the 
town.  When  she  flutters  across  to  the  yellow 
settee  under  the  grape  -  vine  and  balances 
herself  lightly  with  expectation,  I  have  but 
to  request  that  she  favor  me  with  a  little 
singing,  and  soon  the  air  is  vocal  with  every 
note  of  the  village  songsters.  After  this, 
Mrs.  Walters  usually  begins  to  flutter  in  a 
motherly  way  around  the  subject  of  my 
symptoms. 

Naturally  it  has  been  my  wish  to  bring 
about  between  this  rain-crow  and  mocking 
bird  the  desire  to  pair  with  one  another. 
For,  if  a  man  always  wanted  to  tell  his 
symptoms  and  a  woman  always  wished 
to  hear  about  them,  surely  a  marriage  coin- 
pact  on  the  basis  of  such  a  passion  ought 
to  open  up  for  them  a  union  of  everflow- 
ing  and  indestructible  felicity.  They  should 
associate  as  perfectly  as  the  compensating 

metals    of  a   pendulum,   of    which    the   one 
i— 


f 

10 


contracts  as  the  other  expands.  And  then 
I  should  be  a  little  happier  myself.  But 
the  perversity  of  life  !  Jacob  would  never 
confide  in  Mrs.  Walters.  Mrs.  Walters  would 
never  inquire  for  Jacob. 

Now  poor  Jacob  is  dead,  of  no  complaint 
apparently,  and  with  so  few  symptoms  that 
even  the  doctors  did  not  know  what  was  the 
matter,  and  the  upshot  of  this  talk  is  that  his 
place  has  been  sold,  and  I  am  to  have  new 
neighbors.  What  a  disturbance  to  a  man 
living  on  the  edge  of  a  quiet  town ! 

Tidings  of  the  calamity  came  to-day  from 
Mrs.  Walters,  who  flew  over  and  sang — sang 
even  on  a  January  afternoon — in  a  manner 
to  rival  her  most  vociferous  vernal  execution. 
But  the  poor  creature  was  so  truly  distressed 
that  I  followed  her  to  the  front  gate,  and 
we  twittered  kindly  at  each  other  over  the 
fence,  and  ruffled  our  plumage  with  common 
disapproval.  It  is  marvellous  how  a  member 


'MY  MOCKING-BIRD.' 


of  her  sex  will  conceive  dislike  of  people  that 
she  has  never  seen  ;  but  birds  are  sensible  of 
heat  or  cold  long  before  either  arrives,  and 
it  may  be  that  this  mocking-bird  feels  some 
thing  wrong  at  the  quill  end  of  her  feathers. 


II 

MRS.  WALTERS  this  morning  with  more 
news  touching  our  incoming  neighbors. 
Whenever  I  have  faced  towards  this  aggre 
gation  of  unwelcome  individuals,  I  have  be 
held  it  moving  towards  me  as  a  thick  gray 
mist,  shutting  out  nature  beyond.  Perhaps 
they  are  approaching  this  part  of  the  earth 
like  a  comet  that  carries  its  tail  before  it, 
and  I  am  already  enveloped  in  a  disturbing, 
befogging  nebulosity. 

There  is  still  no  getting  the  truth,  but  it 
appears  that  they  are  a  family  of  consequence 
in  their  way — which,  of  course,  may  be  a 
very  poor  way.  Mrs.  Margaret  Cobb,  moth 
er,  lately  bereaved  of  her  husband,  Joseph 
Cobb,  who  fell  among  the,  Kentucky  boys  at 


13 


the  battle  of  Buena  Vista.  A  son,  Joseph 
Cobb,  now  cadet  at  West  Point,  with  a  de 
sire  to  die  like  his  father,  but  destined  to  die 
— who  knows  ? — in  a  war  that  may  break  out 
in  this  country  about  the  negroes.  Then 
there  is  a  daughter,  Miss  Georgiana  Cobb, 
who  embroiders  blue-and-pink-worsted  dogs 
on  black  foot-cushions,  makes  far-off  crayon 
trees  that  look  like  sheep  in  the  act  of  vari 
ously  getting  up  and  lying  down  on  a  hill 
side,  and,  when  the  dew  is  falling  and  the 
moon  is  the  shape  of  the  human  lips,  touches 
her  guitar  with  maidenly  solicitude.  Lastly, 
a  younger  daughter,  who  is  in  the  half-fledged 
state  of  becoming  educated. 

While  not  reconciled,  I  am  resigned.  The 
young  man  when  at  home  may  wish  to  prac 
tise  the  deadly  vocation  of  an  American  sol 
dier  of  the  period  over  the  garden  fence  at 
my  birds,  in  which  case  he  and  I  could  read 
ily  tight  a  duel,  and  help  maintain  an  honored 


14 


custom  of  the  commonwealth.  The  older 
daughter  will  sooner  or  later  turn  loose  on 
my  heels  one  of  her  pack  of  blue  dogs.  If 
this  should  befall  me  in  the  spring,  and  I  sur 
vive  the  dog,  I  could  retort  with  a  dish  of 
strawberries  and  a  copy  of  "Lalla  Rookh"; 
if  in  the  fall,  with  a  basket  of  grapes  and 
Thomson's  "Seasons,"  after  which  there  would 
be  no  further  exchange  of  hostilities.  The 
younger  daughter,  being  a  school-girl,  will 
occasionally  have  to  be  subdued  with  green 
apples  and  salt.  The  mother  could  easily 
give  trouble;  or  she  might  be  one  of  those 
few  women  to  know  whom  is  to  know 
the  best  that  there  is  in  all  this  faulty 
world. 

The  middle  of  February.  The  depths  of 
winter  reached.  Thoughtful,  thoughtless 
words — the  depths  of  winter.  Everything 
gone  inward  and  downward  from  surface  and 
summit,  Nature  at  low  tide.  In  its  time  will 


15 


come  the  height  of  summer,  when  the  tides 
of  life  will  rise  to  the  tree-tops,  or  be  dashed 
as  silvery  insect  spray  all  but  to  the  clouds. 
So  bleak  a  season  touches  my  concern  for 
birds,  which  never  seem  quite  at  home  in 
this  world  ;  and  the  winter  has  been  most 
lean  and  hungry  for  them.  Many  snows  have 
fallen — snows  that  are  as  raw  cotton  spread 
over  their  breakfast- table,  and  cutting  off 
connection  between  them  and  its  bounties. 
Next  summer  I  must  let  the  weeds  grow  up 
in  my  garden,  so  that  they  may  have  a  bet 
ter  chance  for  seeds  above  the  stingy  level  of 
the  universal  white.  Of  late  I  have  opened 
a  pawnbroker's  shop  for  my  hard-pressed 
brethren  in  feathers,  lending  at  a  fearful  rate 
of  interest ;  for  every  borrowing  Lazarus  will 
have  to  pay  me  back  in  due  time  by  monthly 
instalments  of  singing.  I  shall  have  mine 
own  again  with  usury.  But  were  a  man  nev 
er  so  usurious,  would  he  not  lend  a  winter 


16 


seed  for  a  summer  song  ?  Would  he  refuse 
to  invest  his  stale  crumbs  in  an  orchestra  of 
divine  instruments  and  a  choir  of  heavenly 
voices?  And  to-day,  also,  I  ordered  from  a 
nursery-man  more  trees  of  holly,  juniper,  and 
fir,  since  the  storm-beaten  cedars  will  have  to 
come  down.  For  in  Kentucky,  when  the  for 
est  is  naked,  and  every  shrub  and  hedge-row 
bare,  what  would  become  of  our  birds  in  the 
universal  rigor  and  exposure  of  the  world  if 
there  were  no  evergreens — nature's  hostelries 
for  the  homeless  ones  ?  Living  in  the  depths 
of  these,  they  can  keep  snow,  ice,  and  wind  at 
bay  ;  prying  eyes  cannot  watch  them,  nor 
enemies  so  well  draw  near;  cones  or  seed  or 
berries  are  their  store ;  and  in  those  untrod 
den  chambers  each  can  have  the  sacred  com 
pany  of  his  mate.  But  wintering  here  has 
terrible  risks  which  few  run.  Scarcely  in 
autumn  have  the  leaves  begun  to  drop  from 
their  high  perches  silently  downward  when 


17 


the  birds  begin  to  drop  away  from  the  bare 
boughs  silently  southward.  Lo  !  some  morn 
ing  the  leaves  are  on  the  ground,  and  the 
birds  have  vanished.  The  species  that  re 
main,  or  that  come  to  us  then,  wear  the  hues 
of  the  season,  and  melt  into  the  tone  of  Nat 
ure's  background — blues,  grays,  browns,  with 
touches  of  white  on  tail  and  breast  and  wing 
for  coming  flecks  of  snow. 

Save  only  him — proud,  solitary  stranger  in 
our  unfriendly  land  —  the  fiery  grosbeak. 
Nature  in  Kentucky  has  no  wintry  harmo 
nies  for  him.  He  could  find  these  only  among 
the  tufts  of  the  October  sumac,  or  in  the  gum- 
tree  when  it  stands  a  pillar  of  red  twilight 
fire  in  the  dark  November  woods,  or  in  the 
far  depths  of  the  crimson  sunset  skies,  where, 
indeed,  he  seems  to  have  been  nested,  and 
whence  to  have  come  as  a  messenger  of  beau 
ty,  bearing  on  his  wings  the  light  of  his  di 
viner  home. 

2 


18 


With  almost  everything  earthly  that  he 
touches  this  high  herald  of  the  trees  is  in  con 
trast.  Among  his  kind  he  is  without  a  peer. 
Even  when  the  whole  company  of  summer 
voyagers  have  sailed  back  to  Kentucky,  sing 
ing  and  laughing  and  kissing  one  another 
under  the  enormous  green  umbrella  of  Nat 
ure's  leaves,  he  still  is  beyond  them  all  in 
loveliness.  But  when  they  have  been  wafted 
away  again  to  brighter  skies  and  to  soft 
islands  over  the  sea,  and  he  is  left  alone  on 
the  edge  of  that  Northern  world  which  he 
has  dared  invade  and  inhabit,  it  is  then,  amid 
black  clouds  and  drifting  snows,  that  the 
gorgeous  cardinal  stands  forth  in  the  ideal 
picture  of  his  destiny.  For  it  is  then  that 
his  beauty  is  most  conspicuous,  and  that 
Death,  lover  of  the  peerless,  strikes  at  him 
from  afar.  So  that  he  retires  to  the  twilight 
solitude  of  his  wild  fortress.  Let  him  even 
show  his  noble  head  and  breast  at  a  slit  in  its 


19 


green  window-shades,  and  a  ray  flashes  from 
it  to  the  eye  of  a  cat ;  let  him,  as  spring 
comes  on,  burst  out  in  desperation  and  mount 
to  the  tree -tops  which  he  loves,  and  his 
gleaming  red  coat  betrays  him  to  the  poised 
hawk  as  to  a  distant  sharpshooter  ;  in  the 
barn  near  by  an  owl  is  waiting  to  do  his 
night  marketing  at  various  tender-meat  stalls ; 
and,  above  all,  the  eye  and  heart  of  man  are 
his  diurnal  and  nocturnal  foe.  What  wonder 
if  he  is  so  shy,  so  rare,  so  secluded,  this  flame- 
colored  prisoner  in  dark -green  chambers, 
who  has  only  to  be  seen  or  heard  and  Death 
adjusts  an  arrow. 

No  vast  Southern  swamps  or  forest  of  pine 
here  into  which  he  may  plunge.  If  he  shuns 
man  in  Kentucky,  he  must  haunt  the  long 
lonely  river  valleys  where  the  wild  cedars 
grow.  If  he  comes  into  this  immediate 
swarming  pastoral  region,  where  the  people, 
with  ancestral  love  of  privacy,  and  not  from 


20 


any  kindly  thought  of  him,  plant  evergreens 
around  their  country  homes,  he  must  live 
under  the  very  guns  and  amid  the  pitfalls  of 
the  enemy.  Surely,  could  the  first  male  of 
the  species  have  foreseen  how,  through  the 
generations  of  his  race  to  come,  both  their 
beauty  and  their  song,  which  were  meant 
to  announce  them  to  Love,  would  also  an 
nounce  them  to  Death,  he  must  have  blanch 
ed  snow-white  with  despair  and  turned  as 
mute  as  a  stone.  Is  it  this  flight  from  the 
inescapable  just  behind  that  makes  the  sing 
ing  of  the  red-bird  thoughtful  and  plaintive, 
and,  indeed,  nearly  all  the  wild  sounds  of 
nature  so  like  the  outcry  of  the  doomed  : 
He  will  sit  for  a  long  time  silent  and  motion 
less  in  the  heart  of  a  cedar,  as  if  absorbed 
in  the  tragic  memories  of  his  race.  Then, 
softly,  wearily,  he  will  call  out  to  you  and 
to  the  whole  world :  Peace  .  .  Peace  .  .  Peace 
.  .  Peace  .  .  Peace  .  .  !  —  the  most  melo- 


21 


dious  sigh  that  ever  issued  from  the  clefts 
of  a  dungeon. 

For  color  and  form,  brilliant  singing,  his 
very  enemies,  and  the  bold  nature  he  has 
never  lost,  I  have  long  been  most  interested 
in  this  bird.  Every  year  several  pairs  make 
their  appearance  about  my  place.  This  win 
ter  especially  I  have  been  feeding  a  pair  ; 
and  there  should  be  finer  music  in  the  spring, 
and  a  lustier  brood  in  summer. 


Ill 


MAECH  has  gone  like  its  winds.  The  other 
night  as  I  lay  awake  with  that  yearning 
which  often  beats  within,  there  fell  from  the 
upper  air  the  notes  of  the  wild  gander  as  he 
wedged  his  way  onward  by  faith,  not  by 
sight,  towards  his  distant  bourn.  I  rose  and, 
throwing  open  the  shutters,  strained  eyes 
towards  the  unseen  and  unseeing  explorer, 
startled,  as  a  half -asleep  soldier  might  be 
startled  by  the  faint  bugle-call  of  his  com 
mander,  blown  to  him  from  the  clouds. 
What  far-off  lands,  streaked  with  mortal 
dawn,  does  he  believe  in  ?  In  what  soft 
sylvan  waters  will  he  bury  his  tired  breast  ? 
Always  when  I  hear  his  voice,  often  when 
not,  I  too  desire  to  be  up  and  gone  put  of 


23 


these  earthly  marshes  where  hunts  the  dark 
Fowler  —  gone  to  some  vast,  pure,  open  sea, 
where,  one  by  one,  my  scattered  kind,  those 
whom  I  love  and  those  who  love  me,  will 
arrive  in  safety,  there  to  be  together. 

March  is  a  month  when  the  needle  of  my 
nature  dips  towards  the  country.  I  am  away, 
greeting  everything  as  it  wakes  out  of  win 
ter  sleep,  stretches  arms  upward  and  legs 
downward,  and  drinks  goblet  after  goblet  of 
young  sunshine.  I  must  find  the  dark  green 
snowdrop,  and  sometimes  help  to  remove 
from  her  head,  as  she  lifts  it  slowly  from  her 
couch,  the  frosted  nightcap,  which  the  old 
Nurse  would  still  insist  that  she  should  wear. 
The  pale  green  tips  of  daffodils  are  a  thing 
of  beauty.  There  is  the  sun-struck  brook  of 
the  field,  underneath  the  thin  ice  of  which 
drops  form  and  fall,  form  and  fall,  like  big 
round  silvery  eyes  that  grow  bigger  and 
brighter  with  astonishment  that  you  should 


24 


laugh  at  them  as  they  vanish.  But  most  I 
love  to  see  Nature  do  her  spring  house-clean 
ing  in  Kentucky,  with  the  rain-clouds  for  her 
water-buckets  and  the  winds  for  her  brooms. 
What  an  amount  of  drenching  and  sweeping 
she  can  do  in  a  day  !  How  she  dashes  pail 
ful  and  pailful  into  every  corner,  till  the 
whole  earth  is  as  clean  as  a  new  floor  !  An 
other  day  she  attacks  the  piles  of  dead  leaves, 
where  they  have  lain  since  last  October,  and 
scatters  them  in  a  trice,  so  that  every  cranny 
may  be  sunned  and  aired.  Or,  grasping  her 
long  brooms  by  the  handles,  she  will  go  into 
the  woods  and  beat  the  icicles  off  the  big 
trees  as  a  housewife  would  brush  down  cob 
webs  ;  so  that  the  released  limbs  straighten 
up  like  a  man  who  has  gotten  out  of  debt, 
and  almost  say  to  you,  joyfully,  "  Now,  then, 
we  are  all  right  again  !"  This  done,  she  be 
gins  to  hang  up  soft  new  curtains  at  the  for 
est  windows,  and  to  spread  over  her  floor  a 


25 


new  carpet  of  an  emerald  loveliness  such  as 
no  mortal  looms  could  ever  have  woven. 
And  then,  at  last,  she  sends  out  invitations 
through  the  South,  and  even  to  some  tropical 
lands,  for  the  birds  to  come  and  spend  the 
summer  in  Kentucky.  The  invitations  are 
sent  out  in  March,  and  accepted  in  April  and 
May,  and  by  June  her  house  is  full  of  visitors. 
Not  the  eyes  alone  love  Nature  in  March. 
Every  other  sense  hies  abroad.  My  tongue 
hunts  for  the  last  morsel  of  wet  snow  on 
the  northern  root  of  some  aged  oak.  As 
one  goes  early  to  a  concert-hall  with  a  pas 
sion  even  for  the  preliminary  tuning  of  the 
musicians,  so  my  ear  sits  alone  in  the  vast 
amphitheatre  of  Nature  and  waits  for  the 
earliest  warble  of  the  blue-bird,  which  seems 
to  start  up  somewhere  behind  the  heavenly 
curtains.  And  the  scent  of  spring,  is  it  not 
the  first  lyric  of  the  nose — that  despised  poet 
of  the  senses  ? 


But  this  year  I  have  hardly  glanced  at  the 
small  choice  edition  of  Nature's  spring  verses. 
This  by  reason  of  the  on-coming  Cobbs,  at 
the  mere  mention  of  whom  I  feel  as  though 
I  were  plunged  up  to  my  eyes  in  a  vat  of 
the  prosaic.  Some  days  ago  workmen  went 
into  the  house  and  all  but  scoured  the  very 
memory  of  Jacob  off  the  face  of  the  earth. 
Then  there  has  been  need  to  quiet  Mrs. 
Walters. 

Mrs.  Walters  does  not  get  into  our  best 
society  ;  so  that  the  town  is  to  her  like  a 
pond  to  a  crane  :  she  wades  round  it,  going 
in  as  far  as  she  can,  and  snatches  up  such 
small  fry  as  come  shoreward  from  the  middle. 
In  this  way  lately  I  have  gotten  hints  of 
what  is  stirring  in  the  vasty  deeps  of  village 
opinion. 

Mrs.  Cobb  is  charged,  among  other  dread 
ful  things,  with  having  ordered  of  the  town 
manufacturer  a  carriage  that  is  to  be  as  fine 


27 


as  President  Taylor's,  and  with  marching 
into  church  preceded  by  a  servant,  who  bears 
her  prayer-book  on  a  velvet  cushion.  What 
if  she  rode  in  Cinderella's  coach,  or  had  her 
prayer  -  book  carried  before  her  on  the  back 
of  a  Green  River  turtle  ?  But  to  her  sex 
she  promises  to  be  an  invidious  Christian. 
I  am  rather  disturbed  by  the  gossip  regard 
ing  the  elder  daughter.  But  this  is  so  con 
flicting  that  one  impression  is  made  only  to 
be  effaced  by  another. 

A  week  ago  their  agent  wanted  to  buy  my 
place.  I  was  so  outraged  that  I  got  down 
my  map  of  Kentucky  to  see  where  these 
peculiar  beings  originate.  They  come  from 
a  little  town  in  the  northwestern  corner  of 
the  State,  on  the  Ohio  River,  named  Hender 
son —  named  from  that  Richard  Henderson 
who  in  the  year  1775  bought  about  half  of 
Kentucky  from  the  Cherokees,  and  after 
wards,  as  president  of  his  purchase,  ad- 


28 


dressed  the  first  legislative  assembly  ever  held 
in  the  West,  seated  under  a  big  elm-tree  out 
side  the  walls  of  Boonsborough  fort.  These 
people  must  be  his  heirs,  or  they  would  never 
have  tried  to  purchase  my  few  Sabine  acres. 
It  is  no  surprise  to  discover  that  they  are 
from  the  Green  River  country.  They  must 
bathe  often  in  that  stream.  I  suppose  they 
wanted  my  front  yard  to  sow  it  in  penny 
royal,  the  characteristic  growth  of  those  dis 
tricts.  They  surely  distil  it  and  use  it  as 
a  perfume  on  their  handkerchiefs.  It  was 
perhaps  from  the  founder  of  this  family  that 
Thomas  Jefferson  got  authority  for  his  state 
ment  that  the  Ohio  is  the  most  beautiful 
river  in  the  world — unless,  indeed,  the  Pres 
ident  formed  that  notion  of  the  Ohio  upon 
lifting  his  eyes  to  it  from  the  contemplation 
of  Green  River.  Henderson  !  Green  River 
region  !  To  this  town  and  to  the  blue-grass 
country  as  Boeotia  to  Attica  in  the  days  of 


29 


Pericles.  Hereafter  I  shall  call  these  people 
my  Green  River  Boeotians. 

A  few  days  later  their  agent  again,  a  little 
frigid,  very  urgent  —  this  time  to  buy  me 
out  on  my  own  terms,  any  terms.  But  what 
was  back  of  all  this,  I  inquired.  I  did  not 
know  these  people,  had  never  done  them  a 
favor.  Why,  then,  such  determination  to 
have  me  removed?  Why  such  bitterness, 
vindictiveness,  ungovernable  passion  ? 

That  was  the  point,  he  replied.  This 
family  had  never  wronged  me.  I  had  never 
even  seen  them.  Yet  they  had  heard  of  noth 
ing  but  my  intense  dislike  of  them  and  oppo 
sition  to  their  becoming  my  neighbors.  They 
could  not  forego  their  plans,  but  they  were 
quite  willing  to  give  me  the  chance  of  leav 
ing  their  vicinity,  on  whatever  I  might  regard 
the  most  advantageous  terms. 

Oh,  my  mocking-bird,  my  mocking-bird  ! 
When  you  have  been  sitting  on  other  front 


30 


porches,  have  you,  by  the  divine  law  of  your 
being,  been  reproducing  your  notes  as  though 
they  were  mine,  and  even  pouring  forth  the 
little  twitter  that  was  meant  for  your  private 
ear? 

As  March  goes  out,  two  things  more  and 
more  I  hear — the  cardinal  has  begun  to 
mount  to  the  bare  tops  of  the  locust-trees 
and  scatter  his  notes  downward,  and  over 
the  way  the  workmen  whistle  and  sing.  The 
bird  is  too  shy  to  sit  in  any  tree  on  that  side 
of  the  yard.  But  his  eye  and  ear  are  study 
ing  them  curiously.  Sometimes  I  even  fancy 
that  he  sings  to  them  with  a  plaintive  sort  of 
joy,  as  though  he  were  saying,  "  Welcome  — 
go  away !" 


IV 


THE  Cobbs  will  be  the  death  of  me  before 
they  get  here.  The  report  spread  that  they 
and  I  had  already  had  a  tremendous  quarrel, 
and  that,  rather  than  live  beside  them,  I  had 
sold  them  my  place.  This  set  flowing  towards 
me  for  days  a  stream  of  people,  like  a  line  of 
ants  passing  to  and  from  the  scene  of  a  ter 
rific  false  alarm.  I  had  nothing  to  do  but  sit 
perfectly  still  and  let  each  ant,  as  it  ran  up, 
touch  me  with  its  antennae,  get  the  counter 
sign,  and  turn  back  to  the  village  ant-hill. 
Not  all,  however.  Some  remained  to  hear  me 
abuse  the  Cobbs  ;  or,  counting  on  my  sup 
port,  fell  to  abusing  the  Cobbs  themselves. 
When  I  made  not  a  word  of  reply,  except  to 
assure  them  that  I  really  had  not  quarrelled 


32 


with  the  Cobbs,  had  nothing  against  the 
Cobbs,  and  was  immensely  delighted  that  the 
Cobbs  were  coming,  they  went  away  amaz 
ingly  cool  and  indignant.  And  for  days  I 
continued  to  hear  such  things  attributed  to 
me  that,  had  that  young  West-Pointer  been 
in  the  neighborhood,  and  known  how  to 
shoot,  he  must  infallibly  have  blown  my 
head  off  me,  as  any  Kentucky  gentleman 
would. 

Others  of  my  visitors,  having  heard  that  1 
was  not  to  sell  my  place,  were  so  glad  of  it 
that  they  walked  around  my  garden  and  in 
quired  for  my  health  and  the  prospect  for 
fruit.  For  the  season  has  come  when  the 
highest  animal  begins  to  pay  me  some  atten 
tion.  During  the  winter,  having  little  to 
contribute  to  the  community,  I  drop  from 
communal  notice.  But  there  are  certain  la 
dies  who  bow  sweetly  to  me  when  my  roses 
and  honeysuckles  burst  into  bloom ;  a  fat 


33 


old  cavalier  of  the  South  begins  to  shake 
hands  with  me  when  my  asparagus  bed  be 
gins  to  send  up  its  tender  stalks ;  I  am  in 
high  favor  with  two  or  three  young  ladies  at 
the  season  of  lilies  and  sweet-pea ;  there  is 
one  old  soul  who  especially  loves  rhubarb 
pies,  which  she  makes  to  look  like  little  lat 
ticed  porches  in  front  of  little  green  skies, 
and  it  is  she  who  remembers  me  and  my  row 
of  pie-plant ;  and  still  another,  who  knows 
better  than  cat-birds  when  currants  are  ripe. 
Above  all,  there  is  a  preacher,  who  thinks 
my  sins  are  as  scarlet  so  long  as  my  straw 
berries  are,  and  plants  himself  in  my  bed  at 
that  time  to  reason  with  me  of  judgment  to 
come ;  and  a  doctor,  who  gets  despondent 
about  my  constitution  in  pear -time  —  after 
which  my  health  seems  to  return,  but  never 
my  pears. 

So  that,  on  the  whole,  from  May  till  Octo 
ber  I  am  the  bright  side  of  the  moon,  and 


34 


the  telescopes  of  the  town  are  busy  observing 
my  phenomena;  after  which  it  is  as  though 
I  had  rolled  over  on  my  dark  side,  there  to 
lie  forgotten  till  once  more  the  sun  entered 
the  proper  side  of  the  zodiac.  But  let  me 
except  always  the  few  steadily  luminous  spir 
its  I  know,  with  whom  is  no  variableness,  nei 
ther  shadow  of  turning.  If  any  one  wishes 
to  become  famous  in  a  community,  let  him 
buy  a  small  farm  on  the  edge  of  it  and  cul 
tivate  fruits,  berries,  and  flowers,  which  he 
freely  gives  away  or  lets  be  freely  taken. 

All  this  has  taken  freely  of  my  swift  April 
days.  Besides,  I  have  made  me  a  new  side- 
porch,  made  it  myself,  for  I  like  to  hammer 
and  drive  things  home,  and  because  the  rose 
on  the  old  one  had  rotted  it  from  post  to 
shingle.  And  then,  when  I  had  tacked  the 
rose  in  place  again,  the  little  old  window 
opening  above  it  made  that  side  of  my  house 
look  like  a  boy  in  his  Saturday  hat  and  Sun- 


clay  breeches.  So  in  went  a  large  new  win 
dow  ;  and  now  these  changes  have  mysteri 
ously  offended  Mrs.  Walters,  who  says  the 
town  is  laughing  at  me  for  trying  to  outdo 
the  Cobbs.  The  highest  animal  is  the  only 
one  who  is  divinely  gifted  with  such  noble 
discernment.  But  I  am  not  sorry  to  have 
my  place  look  its  best.  When  they  see  it, 
they  will  perhaps  understand  why  I  was  not 
to  be  driven  out  by  a  golden  cracker  on  their 
family  whip.  They  could  not  have  bought 
my  little  woodland  pasture,  where  for  a  gen 
eration  has  been  picnic  and  muster  and  Fourth- 
of -July  ground,  and  where  the  brave  fellows 
met  to  volunteer  for  the  Mexican  war.  They 
could  not  have  bought  even  the  heap  of  brush 
back  of  my  wood -pile,  where  the  brownr 
thrashers  build. 


IN  May  I  am  of  the  earth  earthy.  The 
soul  loses  its  wild  white  pinions  ;  the  heart 
puts  forth  its  short,  powerful  wings,  heavy 
with  heat  and  color,  that  flutter,  but  do  not 
lift  it  off  the  ground.  The  month  comes  and 
goes,  and  not  once  do  I  think  of  lifting  my 
eyes  to  the  stars.  The  very  sunbeams  fall 
on  the  body  as  a  warm  golden  net,  and  keep 
thought  and  feeling  from  escape.  Nature 
uses  beauty  now  not  to  uplift,  but  to  entice. 
I  find  her  intent  upon  the  one  general  busi 
ness  of  seeing  that  no  type  of  her  creatures 
gets  left  out  of  the  generations.  Studied  in 
my  yard  full  of  birds,  as  with  a  condensing- 
glass  of  the  world,  she  can  be  seen  enacting 
among  them  the  dramas  of  history.  Tester- 


37 


day,  in  the  secret  recess  of  a  walnut,  I  saw 
the  beginning  of  the  Trojan  war.  Last  week 
I  witnessed  the  battle  of  Actium  fought  out 
in  mid-air.  And  down  among  my  hedges — 
indeed,  openly  in  my  very  barn-yard — there 
is  a  perfectly  scandalous  Salt  Lake  City. 

And  while  I  am  watching  the  birds,  they 
are  watching  me.  Not  a  little  fop  among 
them,  having  proposed  and  been  accepted, 
but  perches  on  a  limb,  and  has  the  air  of 
putting  his  hands  mannishly  under  his  coat- 
tails  and  crying  out  at  me,  "  Hello  !  Adam, 
what  were  you  made  for  ?"  "  You  attend 
to  your  business,  and  I'll  attend  to  mine,"  I 
answer.  "  You  have  one  May;  I  have  twenty- 
five  !"  He  didn't  wait  to  hear.  He  caught 
sight  of  a  pair  of  clear  brown  eyes  peeping 
at  him  out  of  a  near  tuft  of  leaves,  and  sprang 
thither  with  open  arms  and  the  sound  of  a  kiss. 

But  if  I  have  twenty-five  Mays  remaining, 
are  not  some  Mays  gone  ?  Ah,  well !  Bet- 


ter  a  single  May  with  the  right  mate  than  the 
full  number  with  the  wrong.  And  where  is 
she — the  right  one  ?  If  she  ever  comes  near 
my  yard  and  answers  my  whistle,  I'll  know 
it ;  and  then  I'll  teach  these  popinjays  in 
blue  coats  and  white  pantaloons  what  Adam 
was  made  for. 

But  the  wrong  one  —  there's  the  terror! 
Only  think  of  so  composite  a  phenomenon 
as  Mrs.  Walters,  for  instance,  adorned  with 
limp  nightcap  and  stiff  curl-papers,  like  gar 
nishes  around  a  leg  of  roast  mutton,  waking 
up  beside  me  at  four  o'clock  in  the  morning 
as  some  gray-headed  love-bird  of  Madagascar, 
and  beginning  to  chirp  and  trill  in  an  ecstasy! 

The  new  neighbors  have  come  —  mother, 
younger  daughter,  and  servants.  The  son  is 
at  West  Point;  and  the  other  daughter  lin 
gers  a  few  days,  unable,  no  doubt,  to  tear  her 
self  away  from  her  beloved  pennyroyal  and 
dearest  Green  River.  They  are  quiet;  have 


39 


borrowed  nothing  from  any  one  in  the  neigh 
borhood;  have  well-dressed,  well-trained  ser 
vants;  and  one  begins  to  be  a  little  impressed. 
The  curtains  they  have  put  up  at  the  win 
dows  suggest  that  the  whole  nest  is  being 
lined  with  soft,  cool,  spotless  loveliness,  that 
is  very  restful  and  beguiling. 

No  one  has  called  yet,  since  they  are  not 
at  home  till  June  ;  but  Mrs.  Walters  has 
done  some  tall  wading  lately,  and  declares 
that  people  do  not  know  what  to  think.  They 
will  know  when  the  elder  daughter  arrives ; 
for  it  is  the  worst  member  of  the  family  that 
settles  what  the  world  shall  think  of  the  oth 
ers. 

If  only  she  were  not  the  worst !  If  only 
as  I  sat  here  beside  my  large  new  window, 
around  which  the  old  rose-bush  has  been 
trained  and  now  is  blooming,  I  could  look 
across  to  her  window  where  the  white  cur 
tains  hang,  and  feel  that  behind  them  sat, 


40 


shy  and  gentle,  the  wood-pigeon  for  whom 
through  Mays  gone  by  I  have  been  vaguely 
waiting ! 

And  yet  I  do  not  believe  that  I  could  live 
a  single  year  with  only  the  sound  of  cooing 
in  the  house.  A  wood-pigeon  would  be  the 
death  of  me. 


YI 


THIS  morning,  the  3d  of  June,  the  Undine 
from  Green  River  rose  above  the  waves. 

The  strawberry  bed  is  almost  under  thek 
windows.  I  had  gone  out  to  pick  the  first 
dish  of  the  season  for  breakfast ;  for  while 
I  do  not  care  to  eat  except  to  live,  I  never 
miss  an  opportunity  of  living  upon  straw 
berries. 

I  was  stooping  down  and  bending  the  wet 
leaves  over,  so  as  not  to  miss  any,  when  a 
voice  at  the  window  above  said,  timidly  and 
playfully, 

"Are  you  the  gardener?" 

I  picked  on,  turning  as  red  as  the  berries. 
Then  the  voice  said  again, 

"  Old  man,  are  you  the  gardener  ?" 


Of  course  a  person  looking  down  carelessly 
on  the  stooping  figure  of  any  man,  and  see 
ing  nothing  but  a  faded  straw  hat,  and  arms 
and  feet  and  ankles  bent  together,  might  eas 
ily  think  him  decrepit  with  age.  Some  things 
touch  off  my  temper.  But  I  answered,  hum- 

Wy, 

"I  am  the  gardener,  madam." 

"How  much  do  you  ask  for  your  straw 
berries  ?" 

"  The  gentleman  who  owns  this  place  does 
not  sell  his  strawberries.  He  gives  them 
away,  if  he  likes  people.  How.  much  do  you 
ask  for  your  strawberries  ?" 

"  What  a  nice  old  gentleman  !  Is  he  hav 
ing  those  picked  to  give  away  ?" 

"  He  is  having  these  picked  for  his  break 
fast." 

"  Don't  you  think  he'd  like  you  to  give  me 
those,  and  pick  him  some  more  ?" 

"  I  fear  not,  madam." 


"  Nevertheless,  you  might.  He'd  never 
know." 

"I  think  he'd  find  it  out." 

"  You  are  not  afraid  of  him,  are  you  ?" 

"  I  am  when  he  gets  mad." 

"  Does  he  treat  you  badly  ?" 

"If  he  does,  I  always  forgive  him." 

"He  doesn't  seem  to  provide  you  with 
very  many  clothes." 

I  picked  on. 

"But  you  seem  nicely  fed." 

I  picked  on. 

"  What  is  his  name,  old  man  ?  Don't  you 
like  to  talk  ?" 

"  Adam  Moss." 

"  Such  a  green,  cool,  soft  name  !  It  is  like 
his  house  and  yard  and  garden.  What  does 
he  do  ?" 

"  Whatever  he  pleases." 

"You  must  not  be  impertinent  to  me,  or 
I'll  tell  him.  What  does  he  like  ?" 


44 


"  Birds — red-birds.     What  do  you  like  ?" 

"  Red-birds  !  How  does  he  catch  them  ? 
Throw  salt  on  their  tails  ?" 

"  He  is  a  lover  of  Nature,  madam,  and  par 
ticularly  of  birds." 

"  What  does  he  know  about  birds  ?  Doesn't 
he  care  for  people  ?" 

"He  doesn't  think  many  worth  caring 
for." 

"Indeed  !  And  he  is  perfect,  then,  is 
he?" 

"  He  thinks  he  is  nearly  as  bad  as  any  ;  but 
that  doesn't  make  the  rest  any  better." 

"  Poor  old  gentleman  !  He  must  have  the 
blues  dreadfully.  What  does  he  do  with  his 
birds  ?  Eat  his  robins,  and  stuff  his  cats,  and 
sell  his  red-birds  in  cages  ?" 

"  He  considers  it  part  of  his  mission  in  life 
to  keep  them  from  being  eaten  or  stuffed  or 
caged." 

"  And  you  say  he  is  nearly  a  hundred  ?" 


45 


"  He  is  something  over  thirty  years  of  age, 
tnadam." 

"Thirty?  Surely  we  heard  he  was  very 
old.  Thirty  !  And  does  he  live  in  that  beau 
tiful  little  old  house  all  by  himself  ?" 

"  I  live  with  him  !" 

"  You  !  Ha  !  ha  !  ha  !  And  what  is  your 
name,  you  dear  good  old  man  ?" 

"Adam." 

"  Two  Adams  living  in  the  same  house  ! 
Are  you  the  old  Adarn?  I  have  heard  so 
much  of  him." 

At  this  I  rose,  pushed  back  my  hat,  arid 
looked  up  at  her. 

"  I  am  Adam  Moss,"  I  said,  with  distant 
politeness.  "You  can  have  these  strawber 
ries  for  your  breakfast  if  you  want  them." 

There  was  a  low  quick  "  Oh  !"  and  she 
was  gone,  and  the  curtains  closed  over  her 
face.  It  was  rude  ;  but  neither  ought  she  to 
have  called  me  the  old  Adam.  I  have  been 


46 


thinking  of  one  thing  :  why  should  she 
speak  slightingly  of  my  knowledge  of  birds  ? 
What  does  she  know  about  them  ?  I  should 
like  to  inquire. 

Late  this  afternoon  I  dressed  up  in  my 
high  gray  wool  hat,  my  fine  long-tailed  blue 
cloth  coat  with  brass  buttons,  my  pink  waist 
coat,  frilled  shirt,  white  cravat,  and  yellow 
nankeen  trousers,  and  walked  slowly  several 
times  around  my  strawberry  bed.  Did  not 
see  any  more  ripe  strawberries. 

Within  the  last  ten  days  I  have  called 
twice  upon  the  Cobbs,  urged  no  doubt  by  an 
extravagant  readiness  to  find  them  all  that  I 
feared  they  were  not.  How  exquisite  in  life 
is  the  art  of  not  seeing  many  things,  and  of 
forgetting  many  that  have  been  seen !  They 
received  me  as  though  nothing  unpleasant 
had  happened.  Nor  did  the  elder  daughter 
betray  that  we  had  met.  She  has  not  for- 


47 

gotten,  for  more  than  once  I  surprised  a  light 
in  her  eyes  as  though  she  were  laughing. 
She  has  not,  it  is  certain,  told  even  her  moth 
er  and  sister.  Somehow  this  fact  invests 

her  character  with  a  charm  as  of  subterra- 

fa 

nean  roominess  and  secrecy.      Women  who|| 
tell  everything  are  like  finger-bowls  of  clear 
water. 

But  it  is  Sylvia  that  pleases  me.  She  must 
be  about  seventeen  ;  and  so  demure  and  con 
fiding  that  I  was  ready  to  take  her  by  the 
hand,  lead  her  to  the  garden-gate,  and  say  : 
Dear  child,  everything  in  here  —  butterflies, 
flowers,  fruit,  honey,  everything  —  is  yours  ; 
come  and  go  and  gather  as  you  like. 

Yesterday  morning  I  sent  them  a  large 
dish  of  strawberries,  with  a  note  asking 
whether  they  would  walk  during  the  day 
over  to  my  woodland  pasture,  where  the  sol 
diers  had  a  barbecue  before  setting  out  for 
the  Mexican  war.  The  mother  and  Sylvia 


48 


accepted.  Our  walk  was  a  little  overshad 
owed  by  their  loss  ;  and  as  I  thoughtlessly 
described  the  gayety  of  that  scene  —  the 
splendid  young  fellows  dancing  in  their 
bright  uniforms,  and  now  and  then  pausing 
to  wipe  their  foreheads,  the  speeches,  the 
cheering,  the  dinner  under  the  trees,  and,  a 
few  days  later,  the  tear  -  dimmed  eyes,  the 
hand  -  wringing  and  embracing,  and  at  last 
the  marching  proudly  away,  each  with  a 
Bible  in  his  pocket,  and  many  never,  never  to 
return — I  was  sorry  that  I  had  not  foreseen 
the  sacred  chord  I  was  touching.  But  it 
made  good  friends  of  us  more  quickly,  and 
they  were  well-bred,  so  that  we  returned  to 
all  appearance  in  gay  spirits.  The  elder 
daughter  came  to  meet  us,  and  went  at  once 
silently  to  her  mother's  side,  as  though  she 
had  felt  the  separation.  I  wondered  whether 
she  had  declined  to  go  because  of  the  memo 
ry  of  her  father.  As  we  passed  my  front 


49 


gate,  T  asked  them  to  look  at  my  flowers. 
The  mother  praised  also  the  cabbages,  thus 
showing  an  admirably  balanced  mind  ;  the 
little  Sylvia  fell  in  love  with  a  vine-covered 
arbor  ;  the  elder  daughter  appeared  to  be 
secretly  watching  the  many  birds  about  the 
grounds,  but  when  I  pointed  out  several  less- 
known  species,  she  lost  interest. 

What  surprises  most  is  that  they  are  so 
refined  and  intelligent.  It  is  greatly  to  be 
feared  that  we  Kentuckians  in  this  part  of 
the  State  are  profoundly  ignorant  as  to  the 
people  in  other  parts.  I  told  Mrs.  Walters 
this,  and  she,  seeing  that  I  am  beginning  to 
like  them,  is  beginning  to  like  them  herself. 
Dear  Mrs.  Walters  !  Her  few  ideas  are  like 
three  or  four  marbles  on  a  level  floor :  they 
have  no  power  to  move  themselves,  but 
roll  equally  well  in  any  direction  you  push 
them. 

This  afternoon  I  turned  a  lot  of  little  town 

4 


50 


boys  into  my  strawberry  bed,  and  now  it 
looks  like  a  field  that  had  been  harrowed  and 
rolled.  I  think  they  would  gladly  have 
pulled  up  some  of  the  plants  to  see  whether 
there  might  not  be  berries  growing  on  the 
roots. 

It  is  unwise  to  do  everything  that  you  can 
for  people  at  once  ;  for  when  you  can  do 
nothing  more,  they  will  say  you  are  no  longer 
like  yourself,  and  turn  against  you.  So  I 
have  meant  to  go  slowly  with  the  Cobbs  in 
my  wish  to  be  neighborly,  and  do  not  think 
that  they  could  reasonably  be  spoiled  on  one 
dish  of  strawberries  in  three  weeks.  But  the 
other  evening  Mrs.  Cobb  sent  over  a  plate 
of  golden  sally-lunn  on  a  silver  waiter,  cov 
ered  with  a  snow-white  napkin  ;  and  acting 
on  this  provocation,  I  thought  they  could  be 
trusted  with  a  basket  of  cherries. 

So  next  morning,  in  order  to  save  the  ripen- 


51 

ing  fruit  on  a  rather  small  tree  of  choice  va 
riety,  I  thought  I  should  put  up  a  scarecrow, 
and  to  this  end  rummaged  a  closet  for  some 
last  winter's  old  clothes.  These  I  crammed 
with  straw,  and  I  fastened  the  resulting  fig 
ure  in  the  crotch  of  the  tree,  tying  the  arms 
to  the  adjoining  limbs,  and  giving  it  the 
dreadful  appearance  of  shouting,  "  Keep  out 
of  here,  you  rascals,  or  you'll  get  hurt !" 
And,  in  truth,  it  did  look  so  like  me  that  I 
felt  a  little  uncanny  about  it  myself. 

Returning  home  late,  I  went  at  once  to  the 
tree,  where  I  found  not  a  quart  of  cherries, 
and  the  servants  told  of  an  astonishing  thing : 
that  no  sooner  had  the  birds  discovered  who 
was  standing  in  the  tree,  wearing  the  clothes 
in  which  he  used  to  feed  them  during  the 
winter,  than  the  news  spread  like  wildfire  to 
the  effect  that  he  had  climbed  up  there  and 
was  calling  out  :  "  Here  is  the  best  tree,  fel 
lows  !  Pitch  in  and  help  yourselves  !"  So 


52 


that  the  like  of  the  chattering  and  fetching 
away  was  never  seen  before.  This  was  the 
story  ;  but  little  negroes  love  cherries,  and 
it  is  not  incredible  that  the  American  birds 
were  assisted  in  this  instance  by  a  large  fam 
ily  of  fat  young  African  spoon-bills. 

Anxious  to  save  another  tree,  and  afraid 
to  use  more  of  my  own  clothes,  I  went  over 
to  Mrs.  Walters,  and  got  from  her  an  old 
bonnet  and  veil,  a  dress  and  cape,  and  a 
pair  of  her  cast-off  yellow  gaiters.  These 
garments  I  strung  together  and  prepared  to 
look  life-like,  as  nearly  as  a  stuffing  of  hay 
would  meet  the  inner  requirements  of  the 
case.  I  then  seated  the  dread  apparition  in 
the  fork  of  a  limb,  and  awaited  results.  The 
first  thief  was  an  old  jay,  who  flew  towards 
the  tree  with  his  head  turned  to  one  side  to 
see  whether  any  one  was  overtaking  him. 
But  scarcely  had  he  alighted  when  he  uttered 
a  scream  of  horror  that  was  sickening  to 


53 


hear,  and  dropped  on  the  grass  beneath,  after 
which  he  took  himself  off  with  a  silence  and 
speed  that  would  have  done  credit  to  a  pas 
senger-pigeon.  That  tree  was  rather  avoided 
for  some  days,  or  it  may  have  been  let  alone 
merely  because  others  were  ripening;  so  that 
Mrs.  Cobb  got  her  cherries,  and  I  sent  Mrs. 
Walters  some  also  for  the  excellent  loan  of 
her  veil  and  gaiters. 

As  the  days  pass  I  fall  in  love  with  Sylvia, 
who  has  been  persuaded  to  turn  my  arbor 
into  a  reading-room,  and  is  often  to  be  found 
there  of  mornings  with  one  of  Sir  Walter's 
novels.  Sometimes  I  leave  her  alone,  some 
times  lie  on  the  bench  facing  her,  while  she 
reads  aloud,  or,  tiring,  prattles.  Little  half- 
fledged  spirit,  to  whom  the  yard  is  the  earth 
and  June  eternity,  but  who  peeps  over  the 
edge  of  the  nest  at  the  chivalry  of  the  ages, 
and  fancies  that  she  knows  the  world.  The 


other  day,  as  we  were  talking,  she  tapped 
the  edge  of  her  Ivanhoe  with  a  slate-pencil — 
for  she  is  also  studying  the  Greatest  Common 
Divisor  —  and  said,  warningly,  "You  must 
not  make  epigrams  ;  for  if  you  succeeded 
you  would  be  brilliant,  and  everything  brill 
iant  is  tiresome." 

"  Who  is  your  authority  for  that  epigram, 
Miss  Sylvia  ?"  I  said,  laughing. 

"  Don't  you  suppose  that  I  have  any  ideas 
but  what  I  get  from  books?" 

"  You  may  have  all  wisdom,  but  those  say 
ings  proceed  only  from  experience." 

"  I  have  my  intuitions ;  they  are  better 
than  experience." 

"  If  you  keep  on,  you  will  be  making  epi 
grams  presently,  and  then  I  shall  find  you 
tiresome,  and  go  away." 

"You  couldn't.  I  am  your  guest.  How 
unconventional  I  am  to  come  over  and  sit  in 
your  arbor !  But  it  is  Georgiana's  fault." 


"'YOU  COULDN'T,    i  AM  YOUR  GUEST' 


55 


"Did  she  tell  you  to  come ?" 

"  No  ;  but  she  didn't  keep  me  from  coming. 
Whenever  any  one  of  us  does  anything  im 
proper  we  always  say  to  each  other, '  It's  Geor- 
giana's  fault.  She  ought  not  to  have  taught 
us  to  be  so  simple  and  unconventional.'" 

"  And  is  she  the  family  governess  ?" 

"She  governs  the  ^amily.  There  doesn't 
seem  to  be  any  real  government,  but  we  all  do 
as  she  says.  You  might  think  at  first  that 
Georgiana  was  the  most  light-headed  member 
of  the  family,  but  she  isn't.  She's  deep.  I'm 
shallow  in  comparison  with  her.  She  calls 
me  sophisticated,  and  introduces  me  as  the 
elder  Miss  Cobb,  and  says  that  if  I  don't  stop 
reading  Scott's  novels  and  learn  more  arith 
metic  she  will  put  wrhite  caps  on  me,  and 
make  me  walk  to  church  in  carpet  slippers 
and  with  grandmother's  stick." 

"But  you  don't  seem  to  have  stopped, 
Miss  Sylvia." 


56 


"  No ;  but  I'm  stopping.  Georgiana  al 
ways  gives  us  time,  but  we  get  right  at  last. 
It  was  two  years  before  she  could  make  my 
brother  go  to  West  Point.  He  was  wild  and 
rough,  and  wanted  to  raise  tobacco,  and  float 
with  it  down  to  New  Orleans,  and  have  a 
good  time.  Then  when  she  had  gotten  him 
to  go  she  was  afraid  he'd  come  back,  and 
so  she  persuaded  my  mother  to  live  here, 
where  there  isn't  any  tobacco,  and  where  I 
could  be  sent  to  school.  That  took  her  a 
year,  and  now  she  is  breaking  up  my  habit  of 
reading  nothing  but  novels.  She  gets  us  all 
down  in  the  end.  One  day  when  she  and  Joe 
were  little  children  they  were  out  at  the 
wood-pile,  and  Georgiana  was  sitting  on  a 
log  eating  a  jam  biscuit,  with  her  feet  on  the 
log  in  front  of  her.  Joe  had  a  hand-axe,  and 
was  chopping  at  anything  till  he  caught  sight 
of  her  feet.  Then  he  went  to  the  end  of  the 
log,  and  whistled  like  a  steamboat,  and  began 


57 


to  hack  down  in  that  direction,  calling  out  to 
her :  '  Take  your  toes  out  of  the  way,  Geor- 
giana.  I  am  coming  down  the  river.  The 
current  is  up  and  I  can't  stop.'  'My  toes 
were  there  first,'  said  Georgiana,  and  went  on 
eating  her  biscuit.  'Take  them  out  of  the 
way,  I  tell  you,'  he  shouted  as  he  came  nearer, 
'or  they'll  get  cut  off.'  'They  were  there 
first,'  repeated  Georgiana,  and  took  another 
delicious  nibble.  Joe  cut  straight  along,  and 
went  whack  right  into  her  five  toes.  Geor 
giana  screamed  with  all  her  might,  but  she 
held  her  foot  on  the  log,  till  Joe  dropped  the 
hatchet  with  horror,  and  caught  her  in  his 
arms.  '  Georgiana,  I  told  you  to  take  your  toes 
away,'  he  cried ;  '  you  are  such  a  little  fool,' 
and  ran  with  her  to  the  house.  But  she 
always  had  control  over  him  after  that." 

To-day  I  saw  Sylvia  enter  the  arbor,  and 
shortly  afterwards  I  followed  with  a  book. 


58 

"  When  you  stop  reading  novels  and  begin 
to  read  history,  Miss  Sylvia,  here  is  the  most 
remarkable  history  of  Kentucky  that  was  ever 
written  or  ever  will  be.  It  is  by  my  father's 
old  teacher  of  natural  history  in  Transylvania 
University,  Professor  Rafinesque,  who  also 
had  a  wonderful  botanical  garden  on  this  side 
of  the  town  ;  perhaps  the  first  ever  seen  in 
this  country." 

"I  know  all  about  it,"  replied  Sylvia,  re 
senting  this  slight  upon  her  erudition.  "  Geor- 
giana  has  my  father's  copy,  and  his  was  pre 
sented  to  him  by  Mr.  Audubon." 

"  Audubon  ?"  I  said,  with  a  doubt. 

"Never  heard  of  Audubon?"  cried  Sylvia, 
delighted  to  show  up  my  ignorance. 

"Only  of  the  great  Audubon,  Miss  Sylvia; 
the  great,  the  very  great  Audubon." 

"Well,  this  was  the  great,  the  very  great 
Audubon.  He  lived  in  Henderson,  and  kept 
a  corn-mill.  He  and  my  father  were  friends, 


59 


and  he  gave  my  father  some  of  his  early 
drawings  of  Kentucky  birds.  Georgiana  has 
them  now,  and  that  is  where  she  gets  her 
love  of  birds  —  from  my  father,  who  got  his 
from  the  great,  the  very  great  Audubon." 

"  Would  Miss  Cobb  let  me  see  these  draw 
ings  ?"  I  asked,  eagerly. 

"  She  might ;  but  she  prizes  them  as  much 
as  if  they  were  stray  leaves  out  of  the  only 
Bible  in  the  world." 

As  Sylvia  turned  inside  out  this  pocket  of 
her  mind,  there  had  dropped  out  a  key  to 
her  sister's  conduct.  Now  I  understood  her 
slighting  attitude  towards  my  knowledge  of 
birds.  But  I  shall  feel  some  interest  in  Miss 
Cobb  from  this  time  on.  I  never  dreamed 
that  she  could  bring  me  fresh  news  of  that 
rare  spirit  whom  I  have  so  wished  to  see,  and 
for  one  week  in  the  woods  with  whom  I 
would  give  any  year  of  my  life.  Are  they 
possibly  the  Henderson  family  to  whom  Au- 


dubon  intrusted  the  box  of  his  original  draw 
ings  during  his  absence  in  Philadelphia,  and 
who  let  a  pair  of  Norway  rats  rear  a  family 
in  it,  and  cut  to  pieces  nearly  a  thousand  in 
habitants  of  the  air  ? 

There  are  two  more  days  of  June.  Since 
the  talk  with  Sylvia  I  have  called  twice  more 
upon  the  elder  Miss  Cobb.  Upon  reflection, 
it  is  misleading  to  refer  to  this  young  lady  in 
terms  so  dry,  stiff,  and  denuded ;  and  I  shall 
drop  into  Sylvia's  form,  and  call  her  simply 
Georgiana.  That  looks  better  —  Georgian  a  ! 
It  sounds  well,  too — Georgiana  ! 

Georgiana,  then,  is  a  rather  elusive  char 
acter.  The  more  I  see  of  her  the  less  I  un 
derstand  her.  If  your  nature  draws  near  hers, 
it  retreats.  If  you  pursue,  it  flies — a  little 
frightened  perhaps.  If  then  you  keep  still 
and  look  perfectly  safe,  she  will  return,  but 
remain  at  a  fixed  distance,  like  a  bird  that 


61 


will  stay  in  your  yard,  but  not  enter  your 
house.  It  is  hardly  shyness,  for  she  is  not 
shy,  but  more  like  some  strain  of  wild  nature 
in  her  that  refuses  to  be  domesticated.  One's 
faith  is  strained  to  accept  Sylvia's  estimate 
that  Georgiana  is  deep — she  is  so  light,  so 
airy,  so  playful.  Sylvia  is  a  demure  little 
dove  that  has  pulled  over  itself  an  owl's  skin, 
and  is  much  prouder  of  its  wicked  old  feath 
ers  than  of  its  innocent  heart;  but  Georgiana 
— what  is  she  ?  Secretly  an  owl  with  the 
buoyancy  of  a  humming-bird  ?  However,  it's 
nothing  to  me.  She  hovers  around  her  moth 
er  and  Sylvia  with  a  fondness  that  is  rather 
beautiful.  I  did  not  mention  the  subject  of 
Audubon  and  her  father,  for  it  is  never  well 
to  let  an  elder  sister  know  that  a  younger 
one  has  been  talking  about  her.  I  merely 
gave  her  several  chances  to  speak  of  birds, 
but  she  ignored  them.  As  for  me  and  my 
love  of  birds,  such  trifles  are  beneath  her  no- 


62 


tice.  I  don't  like  her,  and  it  will  not  be  worth 
while  to  call  again  soon,  though  it  would  be 
pleasant  to  see  those  drawings. 

This  morning  as  I  was  accidentally  passing 
under  her  window  I  saw  her  at  it  and  lifted 
my  hat.  She  leaned  over  with  her  cheek  in 
her  palm,  and  said,  smiling, 

"  You  mustn't  spoil  Sylvia  !" 

"What  is  my  definite  offence  in  that  re 
gard?" 

"Too  much  arbor,  too  many  flowers,  too 
niuch  fine  treatment." 

"  Does  fine  treatment  ever  harm  anybody  ? 
Is  it  not  bad  treatment  that  spoils  people  ?" 

"Good  treatment  may  never  spoil  people 
who  are  old  enough  to  know  its  rarity  and 
value.  But  you  say  you  are  a  student  of  nat 
ure;  have  you  not  observed  that  nature  nev 
er  lets  the  sugar  get  to  things  until  they  are 
ripe  ?  Children  must  be  kept  tart." 

"The  next  time  that  Miss  Sylvia  comes 


63 


over,  then,  I  am  to  give  her  a  tremendous 
scolding  and  a  big  basket  of  green  apples." 

"  Or,  what  is  worse,  suppose  you  encourage 
her  to  study  the  Greatest  Common  Divisor  ? 
I  am  trying  to  get  her  ready  for  school  in  the 
fall." 

"  Is  she  being  educated  for  a  teacher  ?" 

"You  know  that  Southern  ladies  never 
teach." 

"  Then  she  will  never  need  the  Greatest 
Common  Divisor.  I  have  known  many  thou 
sands  of  human  beings,  and  none  but  teach 
ers  ever  have  the  least  use  for  the  Greatest 
Common  Divisor." 

"  But  she  needs  to  do  things  that  she  dis 
likes.  We  all  do." 

I  smiled  at  the  memory  of  a  self-willed  lit 
tle  bare  foot  on  a  log  years  ago. 

"I  shall  see  that  my  grape  arbor  does  not 
further  interfere  with  Miss  Sylvia's  progress 
towards  perfection." 


64 

"  Why  didn't  you  wish  us  to  be  your  neigh* 
bors  ?" 

"  I  didn't  know  that  you  were  the  right 
sort  of  people." 

"  Are  we  the  right  sort  ?" 

"  The  value  of  my  land  has  almost  been 
doubled." 

"  It  is  a  pleasure  to  know  that  you  approve 
of  us  on  those  grounds.  Will  the  value  of  our 
land  rise  also,  do  you  think  ?  And  why  do  you 
suppose  we  objected  to  you  as  a  neighbor  ?" 

"I  cannot  imagine." 

"The  imagination  can  be  cultivated,  you 
know.  Then  tell  me  this :  why  do  Kentuck- 
ians  in  this  part  of  Kentucky  think  so  much 
of  themselves  compared  with  the  rest  of  the 
world?" 

"  Perhaps  it's  because  they  are  Virginians. 
There  may  be  various  reasons." 

"  Do  the  people  ever  tell  what  the  reasons 
are  ?" 


65 

"I  have  never  heard  one." 

"  And  if  we  stayed  here  long  enough,  and 
imitated  them  very  closely,  do  you  suppose 
we  would  get  to  feel  the  same  way  ?" 

"  I  am  sure  of  it." 

"  It  must  be  so  pleasant  to  consider  Ken 
tucky  the  best  part  of  the  world,  and  your 
part  of  Kentucky  the  best  of  the  State,  and 
your  family  the  best  of  all  the  best  families 
in  that  best  part,  and  yourself  the  best  mem 
ber  of  your  family.  Ought  not  that  to  make 
one  perfectly  happy  ?" 

"  I  have  often  observed  that  it  seems  to  do 
so." 

"  It  is  delightful  to  remember  that  you  ap 
prove  of  us.  And  we  should  feel  so  glad  to  be 
able  to  return  the  compliment.  Good-bye  !" 

Any  one  would  have  to  admit,  however, 
that  there  is  no  sharpness  in  Georgiana's 
pleasantry.  The  child -nature  in  her  is  so 

5 


sunny,  sportive,  so  bent  on  harmless  mischief. 
She  still  plays  with  life  as  a  kitten  with  a 
ball  of  yarn.  Some  day  Kitty  will  fall  asleep 
with  the  Ball  poised  in  the  cup  of  one  foot. 
Then,  waking,  when  her  dream  is  over,  she 
will  find  that  her  plaything  has  become  a 
rocky,  thorny,  storm-swept,  immeasurable 
world,  and  that  she,  a  woman,  stands  holding 
out  towards  it  her  imploring  arms,  and  ask 
ing  only  for  some  littlest  part  in  its  infinite 
destinies. 

After  the  last  talk  with  Georgiana  I  felt 
renewed  desire  to  see  those  Audubon  draw 
ings.  So  yesterday  morning  I  sent  over  to 
her  some  things  written  by  a  Northern  man, 
whom  I  call  the  young  Audubon  of  the  Maine 
woods.  His  name  is  Henry  D.  Thoreau,  and 
it  is,  I  believe,  known  only  to  me  down  here. 
Everything  that  I  can  find  of  his  is  as  pure 
and  cold  and  lonely  as  a  wild  cedar  of  the 


67 


mountain  rocks,  standing  far  above  its  smoke 
less  valley  and  hushed  white  river.  She  re 
turned  them  to-day  with  word  that  she  would 
thank  me  in  person,  and  to-night  I  went  over 
in  a  state  of  rather  senseless  eagerness. 

Her  mother  and  sister  had  gone  out,  and 
she  sat  on  the  dark  porch  alone.  The  things 
of  Thoreau's  have  interested  her,  and  she 
asked  me  to  tell  her  all  I  knew  of  him,  which 
was  little  enough.  Then  of  her  own  accord 
she  began  to  speak  of  her  father  and  Audu- 
bon — of  the  one  with  the  worship  of  love,  of 
the  other  with  the  worship  of  greatness.  I  felt 
as  though  I  were  in  a  moonlit  cathedral ;  for 
her  voice,  the  whole  revelation  of  her  nature, 
made  the  spot  so  impressive  and  so  sacred. 
She  scarcely  addressed  me;  she  was  com 
muning  with  them.  Nothing  that  her  father 
told  her  regarding  Audubon  appears  to  have 
been  forgotten ;  and,  brought  nearer  than 
ever  before  to  that  lofty,  tireless  spirit  in  its 


68 


wanderings  through  the  Kentucky  forests,  I 
almost  forgot  her  to  whom  I  was  listening. 
But  in  the  midst  of  it  she  stopped,  and  it  was 
again  kitten  and  yarn.  I  left  quite  as  abrupt 
ly.  Upon  my  soul,  I  believe  that  Georgiana 
doesn't  think  me  worth  talking  to  seriously. 


VII 

JULY  has  dragged  like  a  log  across  a  wet 
field. 

There  was  the  Fourth,  which  is  always  the 
grandest  occasion  of  the  year  with  us.  Soci 
ety  has  taken  up  Sylvia  and  rejected  Georgi- 
ana;  and  so  with  its  great  gallantry,  and  to 
her  boundless  delight,  Sylvia  was  invited  to 
sit  with  a  bevy  of  girls  in  a  large  furniture 
wagon  covered  with  flags  and  bunting.  The 
girls  were  to  be  dressed  in  white,  carry  flow 
ers  and  flags,  and  sing  "The  Star-spangled 
Banner"  in  the  procession,  just  before  the 
fire  -  engine.  I  wrote  a  note  to  Georgiana, 
asking  whether  it  would  interfere  with  Syl 
via's  Greatest  Common  Divisor  if  I  presented 
her  with  a  profusion  of  elegant  flowers  on  that 


70 


occasion.  Georgiana  herself  had  equipped 
Sylvia  with  a  truly  exquisite  silken  flag  on  a 
silver  staff;  and  as  Sylvia  both  sang  and 
waved  with  all  her  might,  not  only  to  keep 
up  the  Green  River  reputation  in  such  mat 
ters,  but  with  a  mediaeval  determination  to 
attract  a  young  man  on  the  fire  -  engine  be 
hind,  she  quite  eclipsed  every  other  miss  in 
the  wagon,  and  was  not  even  hoarse  when 
persuaded  at  last  to  stop.  So  that  several  of 
the  representatives  of  the  other  States  voted 
afterwards  in  a  special  congress  that  she  was 
loud,  and  in  no  way  as  nice  as  they  had  fan 
cied,  and  that  they  ought  never  to  recognize 
her  again  except  in  church  and  at  funerals. 

And  then  the  month  brought  down  from 
West  Point  the  son  of  the  family,  who  cut 
off — or  cut  at — Georgiana's  toes,  I  remember. 
With  him  a  sort  of  cousin,  who  lives  in  New 
York  State ;  and  after  a  few  days  of  toploft- 
ical  strutting  around  town,  and  a  pusillani- 


71 


mous  crack  or  two  over  the  back -garden 
fence  at  my  birds,  they  went  away  again,  to 
the  home  of  this  New  York  cousin,  carrying 
Georgiana  with  them  to  spend  the  summer. 

Nothing  has  happened  since.  Only  Sylvia 
and  I  have  been  making  hay  while  the  sun 
shines — or  does  not  shine,  if  one  chooses  to 
regard  Georgiana's  absence  in  that  cloudy 
fashion.  Sylvia's  ordinary  armor  consists  of 
a  slate-pencil  for  a  spear,  a  slate  for  a  shield, 
and  a  volume  of  Sir  Walter  for  a  battle-axe. 
Now  and  then  I  have  found  her  sitting  alone 
in  the  arbor  with  the  drooping  air  of  Lucy 
Ashton  beside  the  fountain  ;  and  she  would 
be  better  pleased  if  I  met  her  clandestinely 
there  in  cloak  and  plume  with  the  deadly 
complexion  of  Ravenswood. 

The  other  day  I  caught  her  toiling  at 
something,  and  she  admitted  being  at  work 
on  a  poem  which  would  be  about  half  as 
long  as  the  "  Lay  of  the  Last  Minstrel."  She 


read  me  the  opening  Jines,  after  that  bland 
habit  of  young  writers  ;  and  as  nearly  as  I 
recollect,  they  began  as  follows : 

"I  love  to  have  gardens,  I  love  to  have  plants, 
I  love  to  have  air,  and  I  love  to  have  ants." 

When  not  under  the  spell  of  mediaeval 
chivalry  she  prattles  needlessly  of  Georgi- 
ana,  early  life,  and  their  old  home  in  Hender 
son.  Although  I  have  pointed  out  to  her  the 
gross  impropriety  of  her  conduct,  she  has  per 
sisted  in  reading  me  some  of  Georgiana's  let 
ters,  written  from  the  home  of  that  New 
York  cousin,  whose  mother  they  are  now  vis 
iting.  I  didn't  like  him  particularly.  Sylvia 
relates  that  he  was  a  favorite  of  her  father's. 

The  dull  month  passes  to-day.  One  thing 
I  have  secretly  wished  to  learn:  did  her 
brother  cut  Georgiana's  toes  entirely  off  ? 


VIII 

IN  August  the  pale  and  delicate  poetry  of 
the  Kentucky  land  makes  itself  felt  as  si 
lence  and  repose.  Still  skies,  still  woods,  still 
sheets  of  forest  water,  still  flocks  and  herds, 
long  lanes  winding  without  the  sound  of  a 
traveller  through  fields  of  the  universal  brood 
ing  stillness.  The  sun  no  longer  blazing,  but 
muffled  in  a  veil  of  palest  blue.  No  more 
black  clouds  rumbling  and  rushing  up  from 
the  horizon,  but  a  single  white  one  brushing 
slowly  against  the  zenith  like  the  lost  wing 
of  a  swan./  Far  beneath  it  the  silver-breasted 
hawk,  using  the  cloud  as  his  lordly  parasol. 
The  eagerness  of  spring  gone,  now  all  but  in 
credible  as  having  ever  existed ;  the  birds 
hushed  and  hiding  ;  the  bee,  so  nimble  once, 


74 


fallen  asleep  over  his  own  cider-press  in  the 
shadow  of  the  golden  apple.  From  the 
depths  of  the  woods  may  come  the  notes  of 
the  cuckoo ;  but  they  strike  the  air  more  and 
more  slowly,  like  the  clack,  clack,  clack  of  a 
distant  wheel  that  is  being  stopped  at  the 
close  of  harvest.  The  whirring  wings  of  the 
locust  let  themselves  go  in  one  long  wave 
of  sound,  passing  into  silence.  All  nature  is 
a  vast  sacred  goblet,  filling  drop  by  drop  to 
the  brim,  and  not  to  be  shaken.  But  the 
stalks  of  the  later  flowers  begin  to  be  stuffed 
with  hurrying  bloom  lest  they  be  too  late; 
and  the  nighthawk  rapidly  mounts  his  stair 
way  of  flight  higher  and  higher,  higher  and 
higher,  as  though  he  would  rise  above  the 
warm  white  sea  of  atmosphere  and  breathe  in 
cold  ether. 

Always  in  August  my  nature  will  go  its 
own  way  and  seek  its  own  peace.  I  roam 
solitary,  but  never  alone,  over  this  rich  pas- 


75 


toral  land,  crossing  farm  after  farm,  and 
keeping  as  best  I  can  out  of  sight  of  the  la 
boring  or  loitering  negroes.  For  the  sight 
of  them  ruins  every  landscape,  and  I  shall 
never  feel  myself  free  till  they  are  gone. 
What  if  they  sing?  The  more  is  the  pity 
that  any  human  being  could  be  happy  enough 
to  sing  so  long  as  he  was  a  slave  in  any 
thought  or  fibre  of  his  nature. 

Sometimes  it  is  through  the  after-math  of 
fat  wheat-fields,  where  float  like  myriad  little 
nets  of  silver  gauze  the  webs  of  the  crafty 
weavers,  and  where  a  whole  world  of  winged 
small  folk  flit  from  tree-top  to  tree-top  of  the 
low  weeds.  They  are  all  mine — these  Ken 
tucky  wheat -fields.  After  the  owner  has 
taken  from  them  his  last  sheaf  I  come  in  and 
gather  my  harvest  also — one  that  he  did  not 
see,  and  doubtless  would  not  begrudge  me — 
the  harvest  of  beauty.  Or  I  walk  beside 
tufted  aromatic  hemp -fields,  as  along  the 


76 


shores  of  softly  foaming  emerald  seas;  or 
past  the  rank  and  file  of  fields  of  Indian-corn, 
which  stand  like  armies  that  had  gotten 
ready  to  march,  but  been  kept  waiting  for 
further  orders,  until  at  last  the  soldiers  had 
gotten  tired,  as  the  gayest  will,  of  their  yellow 
plumes  and  green  ribbons,  and  let  their  big 
hands  fall  heavily  down  at  their  sides.  There 
the  white  and  the  purple  morning-glories 
hang  their  long  festoons  and  open  to  the  soft 
midnight  winds  their  elfin  trumpets. 

This  year  as  never  before  I  have  felt  the 
beauty  of  the  world.  And  with  the  new 
brightness  in  which  every  common  scene  has 
been  apparelled  there  has  stirred  within  me 
a  need  of  human  companionship  unknown  in 
the  past.  It  is  as  if  Nature  had  spread  out 
her  last  loveliness  and  said  :  "  See !  You  have 
before  you  now  all  that  you  can  ever  get 
from  me !  It  is  not  enough.  Realize  this  in 
time.  I  am  your  Mother.  Love  me  as  a 


77 


child.      But   remember !    such  love   can  be 
only  a  little  part  of  your  life." 

Therefore  I  have  spent  the  month  restless, 
on  the  eve  of  change,  drawn  to  Nature,  driven 
from  her.  In  September  it  will  be  different, 
for  then  there  are  more  things  to  do  on  my 
small  farm,  and  I  see  people  on  account  of 
my  grapes  and  pears.  My  malady  this  Au 
gust  has  been  an  idle  mind — so  idle  that  a 
letter  from  Georgiana  seems  its  main  event. 
This  was  written  from  the  old  home  of  Au- 
dubon  on  the  Hudson,  whither  they  had  gone 
sight-seeing.  It  must  have  been  to  her  much 
like  a  pilgrimage  to  a  shrine.  She  wrote  in 
formally,  telling  me  about  the  place  and  en 
closing  a  sprig  of  cedar  from  one  of  the  trees 
in  the  yard.  Her  mind  was  evidently  over 
flowing  on  the  subject.  It  was  rather  pleas 
ant  to  have  the  overflow  turned  my  way.  I 
shall  plant  the  cedar  where  it  will  stay  al 
ways  green. 


78 


I  saw  Georgiana  once  more  before  her  leav 
ing.  The  sudden  appearance  of  her  brother 
and  cousin,  and  the  news  that  she  would  re 
turn  with  them  for  the  summer,  spurred  me 
up  to  make  another  attempt  at  those  Audu- 
bon  drawings. 

How  easy  it  was  to  get  them  !  It  is  what 
a  man  thinks  a  woman  will  be  willing  to  do 
that  she  seldom  does.  But  she  made  a  con 
fession.  When  she  first  found  that  I  was  a 
smallish  student  of  birds,  she  feared  I  would 
not  like  Audubon,  since  men  so  often  sneer  at 
those  who  do  in  a  grand  way  what  they  can 
do  only  in  a  poor  one.  I  had  another  reve 
lation  of  Georgiana's  more  serious  nature, 
which  is  always  aroused  by  the  memory  of 
her  father.  There  is  something  beautiful 
and  steadfast  in  this  girl's  soul.  In  our  hemi 
sphere  vines  climb  round  from  left  to  right ; 
if  Georgiana  loved  you  she  would,  if  bidden, 
reverse  every  law  of  her  nature  for  you  as 


79 


completely  as  a  vine  that  you  had  caused  to 
twine  from  right  to  left. 

Sylvia  enters  school  the  1st  of  September, 
and  Georgiana  is  to  be  at  home  then  to  see  to 
that.  How  surely  she  drives  this  family  be 
fore  her — and  with  as  gentle  a  touch  as  that 
of  a  slow  south  wind  upon  the  clouds. 

Those  poor  first  drawings  of  Audubon  ! 

He  succeeded ;   we  study  his  early  failures. 

The  world  never  studies  the  failures  of  those 

who  do  not  succeed  in  the  end. 

/       The  birds  are  moulting.     If  man  could  only 

I    moult  also — his  mind  once  a  year  its  errors, 

V  his  heart  once  a  year  its  useless  passions ! 

How  fine  we  should  all  look  if  every  August 

the  old  plumage  of  our  natures  would  drop 

out  and  be  blown  away,  and  fresh  quills  take 

the  vacant  places !     But  we  have  one  set  of 

feathers  to  last  us  through   our  threescore 

years  and  ten — one  set  of  spotless  feathers, 

which  we  are  told  to  keep  spotless  through 


all  our  lives  in  a  dirty  world.  If  one  gets 
broken,  broken  it  stays  ;  if  one  gets  black 
ened,  nothing  will  cleanse  it.\\  No  doubt  we 
shall  all  fly  home  at  last,  like  a  flock  of  pig 
eons  that  were  once  turned  loose  snow-white 
from  the  sky,  and  made  to  descend  and  fight 
one  another  and  fight  everything  else  for  a 
poor  living  amid  soot  and  mire.  If  then  the 
hand  of  the  unseen  Fancier  is  stretched  forth 
to  draw  us  in,  how  can  he  possibly  smite  any 
one  of  us,  or  cast  us  away,  because  we  came 
back  to  him  black  and  blue  with  bruises  and 
besmudged  and  bedraggled  past  all  recogni 
tion? 


IS 


TO-DAY,  the  7th  of  September,  I  made  a 
discovery.  The  pair  of  red-birds  that  built 
in  my  cedar-trees  last  winter  got  duly  away 
with  the  brood.  Several  times  during  sum 
mer  rambles  I  cast  my  eye  about,  but  they 
were  not  to  be  seen.  Early  this  afternoon  I 
struck  out  across  the  country  towards  a  sink 
hole  in  a  field  two  miles  away,  some  fifty 
yards  in  diameter,  very  deep,  and  enclosed 
by  a  fence.  A  series  of  these  circular  basins,  % 
at  regular  distances  apart,  runs  across  the 
country  over  there,  suggesting  the  remains 
of  ancient  earth  -  works.  The  bottom  had 
dropped  out  of  this  one,  probably  communi 
cating  with  the  many  caves  that  are  charac 
teristic  of  this  blue  limestone. 


Within  the  fence  everything  is  an  impene 
trable  thicket  of  weeds  and  vines  — black 
berry,  thistle,  ironweed,  pokeweed,  elder, 
golden-rod.  As  I  drew  near,  I  saw  two  or 
three  birds  dive  down,  with  the  shy  way  they 
have  at  this  season  ;  and  when  I  came  to  the 
ed^e,  everything  was  quiet.  But  I  threw  a 
stone  at  a  point  where  the  tangle  was  deep, 
and  there  was  a  great  fluttering  and  scatter 
ing  of  the  pretenders.  And  then  occurred 
more  than  I  had  looked  for.  The  stone  had 
hardly  struck  the  brush  when  what  looked 
like  a  tongue  of  vermilion  flame  leaped  forth 
near  by,  and,  darting  across,  stuck  itself  out 
of  sight  in  the  green  vines  on  the  opposite 
slope.  A  male  and  a  female  cardinal  flew  up 
also,  balancing  themselves  on  sprays  of  the 
blackberry,  and  uttering  excitedly  their  quick 
call-notes.  I  whistled  to  the  male  as  1  had 
been  used,  and  he  recognized  me  by  shooting 
up  his  crest  and  hopping  to  nearer  twigs  with 


83 


louder  inquiry.  All  at  once,  as  if  an  idea 
had  struck  him,  he  sprang  across  to  the  spot 
where  the  first  frightened  male  had  disap 
peared.  I  could  still  hear  him  under  the 
vines,  and  presently  he  reappeared  and  flew 
up  into  a  locust-tree  on  the  farther  edge  of 
the  basin,  followed  by  the  other.  What  had 
taken  place  or  took  place  then  I  do  not  know  ; 
but  I  wished  he  might  be  saying  :  "  My  son, 
that  man  over  there  is  the  one  who  was  very 
good  to  your  mother  and  me  last  winter,  and 
who  owns  the  tree  you  were  born  in.  I  have 
warned  you,  of  course,  never  to  trust  Man; 
but  I  would  advise  you,  when  you  have  found 
your  sweetheart,  to  give  him  a  trial,  and  take 
her  to  his  cedar-trees." 

If  he  said  anything  like  this,  it  certainly  had 
a  terrible  effect  on  the  son  ;  for,  having  mount 
ed  rapidly  to  the  tree-top,  he  clove  the  blue  with 
his  scarlet  wings  as  though  he  were  flying  from 
death.  I  lost  sight  of  him  over  a  corn-field. 


One  fact  pleased  me :  the  father  returned 
to  his  partner  under  the  briers,  for  he  is  not  of 
the  lower  sort  who  forget  the  mother  when 
the  children  are  reared.  They  hold  faith 
fully  together  during  the  ever  more  silent, 
ever  more  shadowy  autumn  days  ;  his  warm 
ing  breast  is  close  to  hers  through  frozen 
winter  nights ;  and  if  they  both  live  to  see 
another  May  she  is  still  all  the  world  to 
him,  and  woe  to  any  brilliant  vagabond  who 
should  warble  a  wanton  love-song  under  her 
holy  windows. 

Georgiana  returned  the  last  of  August. 
The  next  morning  she  was  at  her  window, 
looking  across  into  my  yard.  I  was  obliged 
to  pass  that  way,  and  welcomed  her  gayly, 
expressing  my  thanks  for  the  letter. 

"I  had  to  come  back,  you  see,"  she  said, 
with  calm  simplicity.  I  lingered  awkwardly, 
stripping  upward  the  stalks  of  some  weeds. 

"  Very  few  Kentucky  birds  are  migratory," 


85 


I  replied  at  length,  with  desperate  brilliancy 
and  an  overwhelming  grimace. 

"  I  shall  go  back  some  time — to  stay,"  she 
said,  and  turned  away  with  a  parting  faintest 
smile. 

Is  that  West  Point  brother  giving  trouble? 
If  so,  the  sooner  a  war  breaks  out  and  he  gets 
killed,  the  better.  One  thing  is  certain  :  if, 
for  the  next  month,  fruit  and  flowers  will 
give  Georgiana  any  pleasure,  she  shall  have  a 
good  deal  of  pleasure.  She  is  so  changed  ! 
But  w^hy  need  I  take  on  about  it  ? 

They  have  been  cleaning  out  a  drain  under 
the  streets  along  the  Town  Fork  of  Elkhorn, 
and  several  people  are  down  with  fever. 


X 


NEW-YEAR'S  night  again,  and  bitter  cold. 

When  I  forced  myself  away  from  my  fire 
before  dark,  and  ran  down  to  the  stable  to 
see  about  feeding  and  bedding  the  horses  and 
cows,  every  beast  had  its  head  drawn  in  tow 
ards  its  shoulders,  and  looked  at  me  with  the 
dismal  air  of  saying,  "Who  is  tempering  the 
wind  now?"  The  dogs  in  the  kennel,  with 
their  noses  between  their  hind-legs,  were  shiv 
ering  under  their  blankets  and  straw  like  a 
nest  of  chilled  young  birds.  The  fowls  on 
the  roost  were  mere  white  and  blue  puffs  of 
feathers.  Nature  alone  has  the  making  of  her 
creatures ;  \vhy  doesn't  she  make  them  com 
fortable  ? 

After  supper  old  Jack  and  Dilsy  came  in, 


87 


and  standing  against  the  wall  with  their  arms 
folded,  told  me  more  of  what  happened  after 
I  got  sick.  That  was  about  the  middle  of 
September,  and  it  is  only  two  weeks  since  I 
became  well  enough  to  go  in  and  out  through 
all  sorts  of  weather. 

It  was  the  middle  of  September  then,  my 
servants  said,  and  as  within  a  week  after  tak 
ing  the  fever  I  was  very  ill,  a  great  many 
people  came  out  to  inquire  for  me.  Some  of 
these,  walking  around  the  garden,  declared  it 
was  a  pity  for  such  fruit  and  flowers  to  be 
wasted,  and  so  helped  themselves  freely  every 
time.  The  old  doctor,  who  always  fears  for 
my  health  at  this  season,  stopped  by  nearly 
every  day  to  repeat  how  he  had  warned  me, 
and  always  walked  back  to  his  gig  in  a  round 
about  way,  which  required  him  to  pass  a  fa 
vorite  tree ;  and  once  he  was  so  indignant  to 
find  several  other  persons  gathered  there,  and 
mournfully  enjoying  the  last  of  the  fruit  as 


88 


they  predicted  I  would  never  get  well,  that 
he  came  back  to  the  house  —  with  two  pears 
in  each  duster  pocket  and  one  in  his  mouth — 
and  told  Jack  it  was  an  outrage.  The  preach 
er,  likewise,  who  appears  in  the  spring-time, 
one  afternoon  knocked  reproachfully  at  the 
front  door  and  inquired  whether  I  was  in  a 
condition  to  be  reasoned  with.  In  his  hand 
he  carried  a  nice  little  work-basket,  which 
may  have  been  brought  along  to  catch  his 
prayers ;  but  he  took  it  home  piled  with 
grapes. 

And  then  they  told  me,  also,  how  many  a 
good  and  kind  soul  came  with  hushed  foot 
steps  and  low  inquiries,  turning  away  some 
times  with  brightened  faces,  sometimes  with 
rising  tears  —  often  people  to  whom  I  had 
done  no  kindness  or  did  not  even  know;  how 
others,  whom  I  had  quarrelled  with  or  did 
not  like,  forgot  the  poor  puny  quarrels  and 
the  dislike,  and  begged  to  do  for  me  what- 


89 


ever  they  could ;  bow  friends  went  softly 
around  the  garden,  caring  for  a  flower,  put 
ting  a  prop  under  a  too  heavily-laden  limb, 
or  climbing  on  step-ladders  to  tie  sacks 
around  the  finest  bunches  of  grapes,  with  the 
hope  that  I  might  be  well  in  time  to  eat  them 
— touching  nothing  themselves,  having  no 
heart  to  eat ;  how  dear,  dear  ones  would  nev 
er  leave  me  day  or  night;  how  a  good  doctor 
wore  himself  out  with  watching,  and  a  good 
pastor  sent  up  for  me  his  spotless  prayers ; 
and  at  last,  when  I  began  to  mend,  how  from 
far  and  near  there  poured  in  flowers  and  jel 
lies  and  wines,  until,  had  I  been  the  multi 
tude  by  the  Sea  of  Galilee,  there  must  have 
been  baskets  to  spare.  God  bless  them  !  God 
bless  them  all !  And  God  forgive  us  all  the 
blindness,  the  weakness,  and  the  cruelty  with 
which  we  judge  each  other  when  we  are  in 
health. 

This  and  more  my  beloved  old  negroes  told 


90 


me  a  few  hours  ago,  as  I  sat  in  deep  comfort 
and  bright  health  again  before  my  blazing 
hickories  ;  and  one  moment  we  were  in  laugh 
ter  and  the  next  in  tears — as  is  the  strange 
life  we  live.  This  is  a  gay  household  now, 
and  Dilsy  cannot  face  me  without  a  fleshly 
earthquake  of  laughter  that  I  have  become 
such  a  high-tempered  tiger  about  punctual 
meals. 

In  particular,  my  two  nearest  neighbors 
were  much  at  odds  as  to  which  had  better 
claim  to  nurse  me  ;  so  that  one  day  Mrs. 
Walters,  able  to  endure  it  no  longer,  thrust 
Mrs.  Cobb  out  of  the  house  by  the  shoulder- 
blades,  locked  the  door  on  her,  and  then 
opened  the  shutters  and  scolded  her  out  of 
the  window. 

One  thing  I  miss.  My  servants  have  never 
called  the  name  of  Georgiana.  The  omis 
sion  is  unnatural,  and  must  be  intentional. 
Of  course  I  have  not  asked  whether  she 


91 


showed  any  care  ;  but  that  little  spot  of 
silence  affects  me  as  the  sight  of  a  tree  re 
maining  leafless  in  the  woods  where  every 
thing  else  is  turning  green. 


XI 


TO-DAY  I  was  standing  at  a  window,  look 
ing  out  at  the  aged  row  of  cedars,  now  laden 
with  snow,  and  thinking  of  Horace  and  So- 
racte.  Suddenly,  beneath  a  jutting  pinna 
cle  of  white  boughs  which  left  under  them 
selves  one  little  spot  of  green,  I  saw  a  cardi 
nal  hop  out  and  sit  full-breasted  towards  me. 
The  idea  flashed  through  my  mind  that  this 
might  be  that  shyest,  most  beautiful  fellow 
whom  I  had  found  in  September,  and  whom 
I  tried  to  make  out  as  the  son  of  my  last 
winter's  pensioner.  At  least  he  has  never 
lived  in  my  yard  before  ;  for  when,  to 
test  his  shyness,  I  started  to  raise  the  win 
dow-sash,  at  the  first  noise  of  it  he  was 
gone.  My  birds  are  not  so  afraid  of  me. 


93 


I  must  get  on  better  terms  with  this  stran 
ger. 

Mrs.  Walters  over  for  a  while  afterwards. 
I  told  her  of  my  fancy  that  this  bird  was 
one  of  last  summer's  brood,  and  that  he  ap 
peared  a  trifle  larger  than  any  male  I  had 
ever  seen.  She  said  of  course.  Had  I  not 
fed  the  parents  all  last  winter  ?  When  she 
fed  her  hens,  did  they  not  lay  bigger  eggs  ? 
Did  not  bigger  eggs  contain  bigger  chicks  ? 
Did  not  bigger  chicks  become  bigger  hens, 
again  ?  According  to  Mrs.  Walters,  a  single 
winter's  feeding  of  hot  corn-meal,  scraps  of 
bacon,  and  pods  of  red  pepper  will  all  but 
bring  about  a  variation  of  species  ;  and  so 
if  the  assumed  rate  at  which  I  am  now  going 
were  kept  up  a  hundred  years,  my  cedar- 
trees  might  be  full  of  a  race  of  red-birds  as 
large  and  as  fat  as  geese. 

Standing  towards  sundown  at  another  win 
dow,  I  saw  Georgiana  sewing  at  hers,  as  I 


have  seen  her  every  day  since  I  got  out  of 
bed.  Why  should  she  sew  so  much  ?  There 
is  a  servant  also  ;  and  they  sew,  sew,  sew, 
as  if  eternal  sewing  were  eternal  happiness, 
eternal  salvation.  The  first  day  she  sprang 
up,  letting  her  work  roll  off  her  lap,  and 
waved  her  handkerchief  inside  the  panes, 
and  smiled  with  what  looked  to  me  like  ra 
diant  pleasure  that  I  was  well  again.  I  was 
weak  and  began  to  tremble,  and,  going  back 
to  the  fireside,  lay  back  in  my  chair  with  a 
beating  of  the  heart  that  was  a  warning. 
Since  then  she  has  recognized  me  by  only  a 
quiet  kindly  smile.  Why  has  no  one  ever 
called  her  name  ?  I  believe  Mrs.  Walters 
knows.  She  comes  nowadays  as  if  to  tell 
something,  and  goes  away  with  a  struggle 
that  she  has  not  told  it.  But  a  secret  can  no 
more  stay  in  the  depths  of  Mrs.  Walters's  mind 
than  cork  at  the  bottom  of  water ;  some  day 
I  shall  see  this  mystery  riding  on  the  surface. 


XII 

YES,  she  knew  ;  while  unconscious  I  talked 
of  Georgiana,  of  being  in  love  with  her. 
Mrs.  Walters  added,  sadly,  that  Georgiana 
came  home  in  the  fall  engaged  to  that  New 
York  cousin.  Hence  the  sewing — he  is  to 
marry  her  in  June. 

I  am  not  in  love  with  her.  It  is  now  four 
weeks  since  hearing  this  conventional  fiction, 
and  every  day  I  have  been  perfectly  able  to 
repeat  :  "  I  am  not  in  love  with  Georgiana  !" 
There  was  one  question  which  I  put  severely 
to  Mrs.  Walters  :  Had  she  told  Georgiana 
of  my  foolish  talk  ?  She  shook  her  head  vio 
lently,  and  pressed  her  lips  closely  together, 
suggesting  how  impossible  it  would  be  for 
the  smallest  monosyllable  in  the  language 


96 


to  escape  by  that  channel ;  but  she  kept  her 
eyes  wide  open,  and  the  truth  issued  from 
them,  as  smoke  in  a  hollow  tree,  if  stopped 
in  at  a  lower  hole,  simply  rises  and  comes 
out  at  a  higher  one.  "  You  should  have 
shut  your  eyes  also,"  I  said.  "  You  have 
told  her  every  word  of  it,  and  the  Lord  only 
knows  how  much  more." 

This  February  has  let  loose  its  whole  pack 
of  grizzly  sky -hounds.  Unbroken  severe 
weather.  Health  has  not  returned  as  rap 
idly  as  was  promised,  and  I  have  not  vent 
ured  outside  the  yard.  But  it  is  a  pleasure 
to  chronicle  the  beginning  of  an  acquaint 
anceship  between  his  proud  eminence  the 
young  cardinal  and  myself.  For  a  long  time 
he  would  have  naught  to  do  with  me,  fled 
as  I  approached,  abandoned  the  evergreens 
altogether  and  sat  on  the  naked  tree-tops, 
as  much  as  threatening  to  quit  the  place  al 
together  if  I  did  not  leave  him  in  peace. 


97 


Surely  he  is  the  shyest  of  his  kind,  and,  to 
my  fancy,  the  most  beautiful ;  and  there 
fore  Nature  seems  to  have  stored  him  with 
extra  caution  towards  his  archenemy. 

But  in  the  old  human  way  I  have  taken 
advantage  of  his  necessities.  The  north  wind 
has  been  my  friend  against  him.  I  have 
called  in  the  aid  of  sleets  and  snows,  have 
besieged  him  in  his  white  castle  behind  the 
glittering  array  of  his  icicles  with  threats 
of  starvation.  So  one  day,  dropping  like  a 
glowing  coal  down  among  the  other  birds, 
he  snatched  a  desperate  hasty  meal  from  the 
public  poor-house  table  that  I  had  spread 
under  the  trees. 

It  is  the  first  surrender  that  decides.  Since 
then  some  progress  has  been  made  in  win 
ning  his  confidence,  but  the  struggle  going 
on  in  his  nature  is  plain  enough  still.  At 
times  he  will  rush  away  from  me  in  utter 
terror  ;  at  others  he  lets  me  draw  a  little 


98 


nearer,  a  little  nearer,  without  moving  from 
a  limb  ;  and  now,  after  a  month  of  persua 
sion,  he  begins  to  discredit  the  experience 
which  he  has  inherited  from  centuries  upon 
centuries  of  ancestors.  In  all  that  I  have 
done,  I  have  tried  to  say  to  him  :  "  Don't 
judge  me  by  mankind  in  general.  With  me 
you  are  safe.  I  pledge  myself  to  defend 
you  from  enemies,  high  and  low." 

This  had  not  escaped  the  notice  of  Georgi- 
ana  at  the  window,  and  more  than  once  she 
had  let  her  work  drop  to  watch  my  patient 
progress  and  to  bestow  upon  me  a  reward 
ing  smile.  Is  there  nearly  always  sadness 
in  it,  or  is  the  sadness  in  my  eyes  ?  If  Geor- 
giana's  brother  is  giving  her  trouble,  I'd  like 
to  take  a  hand-axe  to  his  feet.  I  suppose 
I  shall  never  know  whether  he  cut  her  foot 
in  two.  She  carries  the  left  one  a  little  pe 
culiarly  ;  but  so  many  women  do  that. 

Sometimes,  when  the  day's  work  is  over 


99 


and  the  servant  is  gone,  Georgiana  comes  to 
the  window  and  looks  away  towards  the  sun 
sets  of  winter,  her  hands  clasped  behind  her 
back,  her  motionless  figure  in  relief  against 
the  darkness  within,  her  face  white  and  still. 
Being  in  the  shadow  of  my  own  room,  so  that 
she  could  not  see  me,  and  knowing  that  I 
ought  not  to  do  it,  but  unable  to  resist,  I 
have  softly  taken  up  the  spy-glass  which  I  use 
in  the  study  of  birds,  and  have  drawn  Geor- 
giana's  face  nearer"  to  me,  holding  it  there 
till  she  turns  away.  I  have  noted  the  traces 
of  pain,  and  once  the  tears  which  she  could 
not  keep  back  and  was  too  proud  to  heed. 
Then  I  have  sat  before  my  flickering  embers, 
with  I  know  not  what  all  but  ungoverna 
ble  yearning  to  be  over  there  in  the  shadowy 
room  with  her,  and,  whether  she  would  or 
not,  to  fold  my  arms  around  her,  and,  draw 
ing  her  face  against  mine,  whisper :  "  What 
is  it,  Georgiana  ?  And  why  must  it  be  ?" 


XIII 

THE  fountains  of  the  great  deep  opened. 
A  new  heaven,  a  new  earth.  Georgiana  has 
broken  her  engagement  with  her  cousin. 
Mrs.  Cobb  let  it  out  in  the  strictest  confi 
dence  to  Mrs.  Walters.  Mrs.  Walters,  with 
stricter  confidence  still,  has  told  me  only. 

The  West -Pointer  had  been  writing  for 
some  months  in  regard  to  the  wild  behavior 
of  his  cousin.  This  grew  worse,  and  the 
crisis  came.  Georgiana  snapped  her  thread 
and  put  up  her  needle.  He  travelled  all  the 
way  down  here  to  implore.  I  met  him  at 
the  gate  as  he  left  the  house — a  fine,  straight, 
manly,  handsome  young  fellow,  with  his  face 
pale  with  pain,  and  his  eyes  flashing  with 
anger — and  bade  him  a  long,  affectionate, 


inward  God-speed  as  he  hurried  away.  It 
was  her  father's  influence.  He  had  always 
wished  for  this  union.  Ah,  the  evils  that 
come  to  the  living  from  the  wrongful  wishes 
of  the  dead  !  Georgiana  is  so  happy  now, 
since  she  has  been  forced  to  free  herself, 
that  spring  in  this  part  of  the  United  States 
seems  to  have  advanced  about  half  a  month. 

"  What  on  earth  will  she  do  with  all  those 
clothes?"  inquired  Mrs.  Walters  the  other 
night,  eying  me  with  curious  impressive- 
ness. 

"They  ought  to  be  hanged,"  I  said, 
promptly. 

There  is  a  young  scapegrace  who  passes  my 
house  morning  and  evening  with  his  cows. 
He  has  the  predatory  instincts  of  that  being 
who  loves  to  call  himself  the  image  of  his 
Maker,  and  more  than  once  has  given  annoy 
ance,  especially  last  year,  when  he  robbed  a 
damson-tree  of  a  brood  of  Baltimore  orioles. 


102 


This  winter  and  spring  his  friendly  interest 
in  my  birds  has  increased,  and  several  times 
I  have  caught  him  skulking  among  the  pines. 
Last  night  what  should  I  stumble  on  but  a 
trap,  baited  and  sprung,  under  the  cedar-tree 
in  which  the  cardinal  roosts.  I  was  up  be 
fore  daybreak  this  morning.  Awhile  after 
the  waking  of  the  birds  here  comes  my  young 
bird-thief,  creeping  rapidly  to  his  trap.  As 
he  stooped  I  had  him  by  the  collar,  and 
within  the  next  five  minutes  I  must  have  set 
up  in  his  nervous  system  a  negative  dispo 
sition  to  the  caging  of  red-birds  that  will 
descend  as  a  positive  tendency  to  all  the 
generations  of  his  offspring. 

All  day  this  meditated  outrage  has  kept 
my  blood  up.  Think  of  this  beautiful  cardi 
nal  beating  his  heart  out  against  maddening 
bars,  or  caged  for  life  in  some  dark  city 
street,  lonely,  sick,  and  silent,  bidden  to  sing 
joyously  of  that  high  world  of  light  and 


103 


liberty  where  once  he  sported !  Think  of 
the  exquisite  refinement  of  cruelty  in  wishing 
to  take  him  on  the  eve  of  May ! 

It  is  hardly  a  fancy  that  something  as  loyal 
as  friendship  has  sprung  up  between  this 
bird  and  me.  I  accept  his  original  shyness 
as  a  mark  of  his  finer  instincts  ;  but,  like  the 
nobler  natures,  when  once  he  found  it  pos 
sible  to  give  his  confidence,  how  frankly  and 
fearlessly  has  it  been  given.  The  other  day, 
brilliant,  warm,  windless,  I  was  tramping 
across  the  fields  a  mile  from  home,  when  I 
heard  him.  on  the  summit  of  a  dead  syca 
more,  cleaving  the  air  with  stroke  after 
stroke  of  his  long  melodious  whistle,  as  with 
the  swing  of  a  silken  lash.  When  I  drew 
near  he  dropped  down  from  bough  to  bough 
till  he  reached  the  lowest,  a  few  feet  from 
where  I  stood,  and  showed  by  every  move 
ment  how  glad  he  was  to  see  me.  We  really 
have  reached  the  understanding  that  the  im- 


104 


memorial  persecution  of  his  race  by  mine  is 
ended  ;  and  now  more  than  ever  my  fondness 
settles  about  him,  since  I  have  found  his 
happiness  plotted  against,  and  have  perhaps 
saved  his  very  life.  It  would  be  easy  to  trap 
him.  His  eye  should  be  made  to  distrust 
every  well  -  arranged  pile  of  sticks  under 
which  lurks  a  morsel. 

To  -  night  I  called  upon  Georgiana  and 
sketched  the  arrested  tragedy  of  the  morn 
ing.  She  watched  me  curiously,  and  then 
dashed  into  a  little  treatise  on  the  celebrated 
friendships  of  man  for  the  lower  creatures,  in 
fact  and  fiction,  from  camelsMown  to  white 
mice.  Her  father  must  have  been  a  remark 
ably  learned  man.  I  didn't  like  this.  It 
made  me  somehow  feel  as  though  I  were  one 
of  ^Esop's  Fables,  or  were  being  translated 
into  English  as  that  old  school  -  room  horror 
of  Androclus  and  the  Lion.  In  the  bottom 
of  my  soul  I  don't  believe  that  Georgiana 


105 


cares  for  birds,  or  knows  the  difference  be 
tween  a  blackbird  and  a  crow.  I  am  going 
to  send  her  a  little  story,  "The  Passion  of 
the  Desert."  Mrs.  Walters  is  now  confident 
that  Georgiana  regrets  having  broken  off  her 
engagement.  But  then  Mrs.  Walters  can  be 
a  great  fool  when  she  puts  her  whole  mind 
to  it. 


XIV 

IN  April  I  commence  to  scratch  and  dig  in 
my  garden. 

To-day,  as  I  was  raking  off  my  strawberry 
bed,  Georgiana,  whom  I  have  not  seen  since 
the  night  when  she  satirized  me,  called  from 
the  window  : 

"  What  are  you  going  to  plant  this 
year?" 

"  Oh,  a  little  of  everything,"  I  answered, 
under  my  hat.  "  What  are  you  going  to  plant 
this  year  ?" 

"  Are  you  going  to  have  many  straw 
berries  ?" 

"  It's  too  soon  to  tell  :  they  haven't 
bloomed  yet.  It's  too  soon  to  tell  when  they 
do  bloom.  Sometimes  strawberries  are  like 


107 


women:  Whole  beds  full  of  showy  blos 
soms  ;  but  when  the  time  comes  to  be  ripe 
and  luscious,  you  can't  find  them." 

"  Indeed." 

"Tis  true,  'tis  pity." 

"  I  had  always  supposed  that  to  a  South 
ern  gentleman  woman  was  not  a  berry  but  a 
rose.  What  does  he  hunt  for  in  woman  as 
much  as  bloom  and  fragrance?  But  I  don't 
belong  to  the  rose -order  of  Southern  wom 
en  myself.  Sylvia  does.  Why  did  you  send 
me  that  story  ?" 

"  Didn't  you  like  it  ?" 

"  'No.  A  woman  couldn't  care  for  a  story 
about  a  man  and  a  tigress.  Either  she  would 
feel  that  she  was  too  much  left  out,  or  sus 
pect  that  she  was  too  much  put  in.  The  same 
sort  of  story  about  a  lion  and  a  woman  — 
that  would  be  better." 

I  raked  in  silence  for  a  minute,  and  when 
I  looked  up  Georgiana  was  gone.  I  remem- 


108 


bor  her  saying  once  that  children  should  be 
kept  tart  ;  but  now  and  then  I  fancy  that 
she  would  like  to  keep  even  a  middle-aged 
man  in  brine.  Who  knows  but  that  in  the 
end  I  shall  sell  my  place  to  the  Cobbs  and 
move  away  ? 
iX 

Five  more  days  of  April,  and  then  May  ! 
For  the  last  half  of  this  light  -  and  -  shadow 
month,  when  the  clouds,  like  schools  of 
changeable  lovely  creatures,  seem  to  be  play 
ing  and  rushing  away  through  the  waters  of 
the  sun,  life  to  me  has  narrowed  more  and 
more  to  the  red-bird,  who  gets  tamer  and 
tamer  with  habit,  and  to  Georgiana,  who 
gets  wilder  and  wilder  with  happiness.  The 
bird  fills  the  yard  with  brilliant  singing; 
she  fills  her  room  with  her  low,  clear  songs, 
hidden  behind  the  window  -  curtains,  which 
are  now  so  much  oftener  and  so  needlessly 
closed.  I  work  myself  nearly  to  death  in 


100 


my  garden,  but  she  does  notfopen  them.  The 
other  day  the  red-bird  sat  in  a  tree  near  by, 
and  his  notes  floated  out  on  the  air  like  scar 
let  streamers.  Georgiana  was  singing,  so 
low  that  I  was  making  no  noise  with  my 
rake  in  order  to  hear  ;  and  when  he  began, 
before  I  realized  what  I  was  doing,  I  had 
seized  a  brickbat  and  hurled  it,  barely  miss 
ing  him,  and  driving  him  away.  He  did 
not  know  what  to  make  of  it  ;  neither  did 
I;  but  as  I  raised  my  eyes  I  saw  that  Geor 
giana  had  opened  the  curtains  to  listen  to 
him,  and  was  closing  them  with  her  eyes  on 
my  face,  and  a  look  on  hers  that  has  haunted 
me  ever  since. 

April  the  26th.  It's  of  no  use.  To-morrow 
night  I  will  go  to  see  Georgiana,  and  ask  her 
to  marry  me. 

April  28th.     Man  that  is  born  of  woman 


110 


is  of  few  days  aifd  full  of  trouble.  I  am  not 
the  least  sick,  but  I  am  not  feeling  at  all 
well.  So  have  made  a  will,  and  left  every 
thing  to  Mrs.  Walters.  She  has  been  over  five 
times  to-day,  and  this  evening  sat  by  me  a 
long  time,  holding  my  hand  and  smoothing 
my  forehead,  and  urging  me  to  try  a  cream 
poultice  —  a  mustard  -  plaster  —  a  bowl  of 
gruel — a  broiled  chicken. 

I  believe  Georgiana  thinks  I'll  ask  her 
again.  Not  if  I  lived  by  her  through  eter 
nity!  Thy  rod  and  Thy  staff — they  comfort 


XV 


A  POOR  devil  will  ask  a  woman  to  marry 
him.  She  will  refuse  him.  The  day  after 
she  will  meet  him  as  serenely  as  if  he  had 
asked  her  for  a  pin. 

It  is  now  May  15th,  and  I  have  not  spoken 
to  Georgiana  when  I've  had  a  chance.  She 
has  been  entirely  too  happy,  to  judge  from 
her  singing,  for  me  to  get  along  with  under 
the  circumstances.  But  this  morning,  as  I 
was  planting  a  hedge  inside  my  fence  under 
her  window,  she  leaned  over  and  said,  as 
though  nothing  were  wrong  between  us, 
"  What  are  you  planting?" 

I  have  sometimes  thought  that  Georgiana 
can  ask  more  questions  than  Socrates. 

"A  hedge." 


112 


"  What  for  ?" 

"  To  grow." 

"  What  do  you  want  it  to  grow  for  ?" 

"  My  garden  is  too  public.  I  wish  to  be 
protected  from  outsiders." 

"  Would  it  be  the  same  thing  if  I  were  to 
nail  up  this  window?  That  would  be  so 
much  quicker.  It  will  be  ten  years  before 
your  hedge  is  high  enough  to  keep  me  from 
seeing  you.  And  even  then,  you  know,  I 
could  move  up-stairs.  But  I  am  so  sorry  to 
be  an  outsider." 

"  I  merely  remarked  that  I  was  planting  a 
hedge." 

When  Georgiana  spoke  again  her  voice  was 
lowered  :  "  Would  you  open  a  gateway  for 
me  into  your  garden,  to  be  always  mine,  so 
that  I  might  go  out  and  come  in,  and  never 
another  human  soul  enter  it  ?" 

Now  Jacob  had  often  begged  me  to  cut 
him  a  private  gateway  on  that  side  of  the 


113 


garden,  so  that  only  he  might  come  in  and  go 
out;  and  I  had  refused,  since  I  did  not  wish 
him  to  get  to  me  so  easily  with  his  com 
plaints.  Besides,  a  gate  once  opened,  who 
may  not  use  it?  and  I  was  indignant  that 
Georgiana  should  lightly  ask  anything  at  my 
hands;  therefore  I  looked  quickly  and  sternly 
up  at  her  and  said,  "I  will  not." 

Afterwards  the  thought  rushed  over  me 
that  she  had  not  spoken  of  any  gateway 
through  my  garden  fence,  but  of  another 
one,  mystical,  hidden,  infinitely  more  sacred. 
For  her  voice  descended  almost  in  a  whis 
per,  and  her  face,  as  she  bent  down  tow 
ards  me,  had  on  it  I  know  not  what  angelic 
expression.  She  seemed  floating  to  me  from 
heaven. 

May  17th.  To-day  I  put  a  little  private 
gate  through  my  fence  under  Georgiana's 
window,  as  a  sign  to  her.  Balaam's  beast 


114 


that  I  am!    Yes,  seven  times  more  than  the 
inspired  ass. 

As  I  passed  to-day,  I  noticed  Georgiana 
looking  down  at  the  gate  that  I  made  yester 
day.  She  held  a  flower  to  her  nose  and  eyes, 
but  behind  the  leaves  I  detected  that  she  was 
laughing. 

"  Good-morning!"  she  called  to  me.  "  What 
did  you  cut  that  ugly  hole  in  your  fence 
for?" 

"  That's  not  an  ugly  hole.  That's  a  little 
private  gateway." 

"But  what's  the  little  private  gateway 
for?" 

"  Oh,  well !  You  don't  understand  these 
matters.  I'll  tell  your  mother." 

"My  mother  is  too  old.  She  no  longer 
stoops  to  such  things.  Tell  me  /" 

"Impossible!" 

"  I'm  dying  to  know  !" 


115 


"What  will  you  give  me?'7 

"Anything — this  flower!" 

"But  what  would  the  flower  stand  for  in 
that  case?  A  little  pri — " 

"  Nothing.  Take  it !"  and  she  dropped  it 
lightly  on  my  face  and  disappeared.  As  I 
stood  twirling  it  ecstatically  under  my  nose, 
and  wondering  how  I  could  get  her  to  come 
back  to  the  window,  the  edge  of  a  curtain  was 
lifted,  and  a  white  hand  stole  out  and  softly 
closed  the  shutters. 

In  the  evening  Sylvia  went  in  to  a  con 
cert  of  the  school,  which  was  to  be  held 
at  the  Court-house,  a  chorus  of  girls  being 
impanelled  in  the  jury-box,  and  the  princi 
pal,  who  wears  a  little  wig,  taking  her  seat 
on  the  woolsack.  I  promised  to  have  the 
very  pick  of  the  garden  ready,  and  told  Syl 
via  to  come  to  the  arbor  the  last  thing  before 
starting.  She  wore  big  blue  rosettes  in  her 
hair,  and  at  that  twilight  hour  looked  as 


116 


lovely,  soft,  and  pure  as  moonshine  ;  so  that 
I  lost  control  of  myself  and  kissed  her  twice 
— once  for  Georgiana  and  once  for  myself. 
Surely  it  must  have  been  Sylvia's  first  experi 
ence.  I  hope  so.  Yet  she  passed  through  it 
with  the  composure  of  a  graduate  of  several 
years'  standing.  But,  then,  women  inherit  a 
great  stock  of  fortitude  from  their  mothers 
in  this  regard,  and  perpetually  add  to  it  by 
their  own  dispositions.  Ought  I  to  warn 
Georgiana — good  heavens  !  in  a  general  way, 
of  course — that  Sylvia  should  be  kept  away 
from  sugar,  and  well  under  the  influence  of 
vulgar  fractions  ? 

It  made  me  feel  uncomfortable  to  see  her 
go  tripping  out  of  her  front  gate  on  the  arm 
of  a  youth.  Can  it  be  possible  that  he  would 
try  to  do  what  /  did  ?  Men  differ  so  in  their 
virtues,  and  are  so  alike  in  their  transgressions. 
This  forward  gosling  displayed  white  duck 
pantaloons,  brandished  pumps  on  his  feet, 


117 

.which  looked  flat  enough  to  have  been 
webbed,  and  was  scented  as  to  his  marital 
locks  with  a  far-reaching  pestilence  of  ber- 
gamot  and  cinnamon. 

After  they  were  gone  I  strolled  back  to 
my  arbor  and  sat  down  amid  the  ruins  of 
Sylvia's  flowers.  The  night  was  mystically 
beautiful.  The  moon  seemed  to  me  to  be 
softly  stealing  down  the  sky  to  kiss  Endym- 
ion.  I  looked  across  towards  Georgiana's 
window.  She  was  there,  and  I  slipped  over 
and  stood  under  it. 

"Georgiana,"  I  whispered,  "were  you,  too, 
looking  at  the  moon  ?" 

"  Part  of  the  time,"  she  said,  sourly.  "  Isn't 
it  permitted  ?" 

"  Sylvia  left  her  scissors  in  the  arbor,  and 
I  can't  find  them." 

"  She'll  find  them  to-morrow." 

"  If  they  get  wet,  you  know,  they'll  rust." 

"I  keep  something  to  take  rust  off." 


118 


"  Georgiana,  I've  got  something  to  tell  you 
about  Sylvia." 

"  What  ?     That  you  kissed  her  ?" 
« 1ST— o  !     Not  that,  exactly !" 
"  Good-night !" 

May  21st.  Again  I  asked  Georgiana  to  be 
mine.  I  am  a  perfect  fool  about  her.  But 
she's  coming  my  way  at  last — God  bless  her ! 

May  24th.  I  renewed  my  suit  to  Geor 
giana. 

May  27th.     I  besought  Georgiana  to  hear 


me. 


May  28th.  For  the  last  time  I  offered  my 
hand  in  marriage  to  the  elder  Miss  Cobb. 
Now  I  am  done  with  her  forever.  I  am  no 
fool. 

May  29th.     Oh,  damn  Mrs.  Walters! 


XVI 

THIS  morning,  the  3d  of  June,  I  went  out 
to  pick  the  first  dish  of  strawberries  for  my 
breakfast.  As  I  was  stooping  down  I  heard 
a  timid,  playful  voice  at  the  window  like 
the  echo  of  a  year  ago :  "  Are  you  the  gar 
dener  ?" 

Since  Georgiana  will  not  marry  me,  if  she 
would  only  let  me  alone  ! 

"  Old  man,  are  you  the  gardener  ?" 

"Yes,  I'm  the  gardener.  I  know  what  you 
are." 

"How  much  do  you  ask  for  your  straw 
berries?" 

"They  come  high.  Nothing  of  mine  is  to 
be  as  cheap  hereafter  as  it  has  been." 

"I  am  so  glad — for  your  sake.     I  should 


120 


like  to  possess  something  of  yours,  but  I  sup 
pose  everything  is  too  high  now." 

"  Entirely  too  high  !" 

"If  I  only  could  have  foreseen  that  there 
would  be  an  increase  of  value  !  As  for  me,  I 
have  felt  that  I  am  getting  cheaper  lately.  I 
may  have  to  give  myself  away  soon.  If  I 
only  knew  of  some  one  who  loved  the  lower 
animals." 

"  The  fox,  for  instance  ?" 

"Yes;  do  you  know  of  any  one  who  would 
accept  the  present  of  a  fox  ?" 

"Ahem!  I  wouldn't  mind  having  a  tame 
fox.  I  don't  care  much  for  wild  foxes." 

"  Oh,  this  one  would  get  tame — in  time." 

"I  don't  believe  I  know  of  any  one  just  at 
present." 

"Very  well.  Sylvia  will  get  the  highest 
mark  in  arithmetic.  And  Joe  is  distinguish 
ing  himself  at  West  Point.  That's  what  I 
wanted  to  tell  you.  I'll  send  you  over  the 


121 

cream  and  sugar,  and  hope  you  will  enjoy 
all  your  berries.  We  shall  buy  some  in  the 
market-house  next  w\ek." 

Later  in  the  forenoon  I  sent  the  straw 
berries  over  to  Georgiana.  I  have  a  variety 
that  is  the  shape  of  the  human  heart,  and 
when  ripe  it  matches  in  color  that  brighter 
current  of  the  heart  through  which  runs  the 
hidden  history  of  our  passions.  All  over  the 
top  of  the  dish  I  carefully  laid  these  heart- 
shaped  berries,  and  under  the  biggest  one,  at 
the  very  top,  I  slipped  this  little  note :  "  Look 
at  the  shape  of  them,  Georgiana!  I  send 
them  all  to  you.  They  are  perishable." 

This  afternoon  Georgiana  sent  back  the 
empty  dish,  and  inside  the  napkin  was  this 
note :  "  They  are  exactly  the  shape  and  color 
of  my  emery  needle-bag.  I  have  been  polish 
ing  my  needles  in  it  for  many  years." 

Later,  as  I  was  walking  to  town,  I  met 
Georgiana  and  her  mother  coming  out.  No 


122 

\  ' 

explanation  had  ever  been  made  to  the  mother 
of  that  goose  of  a  gate  in  our  division  fence ; 
and  as  Georgiana  had  declined  to  accept  the 
sign,  I  determined  to  show  her  that  the  gate 
could  now  stand  for  something  else.  So  I 
said  :  "  Mrs.  Cobb,  when  you  send  your  ser 
vants  over  for  green  corn,  you  can  let  them 
come  through  that  little  gate.  It  will  be 
more  convenient." 

Only,  I  was  so  angry  and  confused  that  I 
called  her  Mrs.  Corn,  and  said  that  when  she 
sent  her  little  Cobbs  over  .  .  .  my  green 
servants,  etc. 

After  Georgiana's  last  treatment  of  me  I 
resolved  not  to  let  her  talk  to  me  out  of  her 
window.  So  about  nine  o'clock  this  morning 
I  took  a  negro  boy  and  set  him  to  picking  the 
berries,  while  I  stood  by,  directing  him  in  a 
deep,  manly  voice  as  to  the  best  way  of  man 
aging  that  intricate  business.  Presently  I 


123 

heard  Georgiana  begin  to  sing  to  herself  be 
hind  the  curtains. 

"  Hurry  up  and  fill  that  cup,"  I  said  to  him, 
savagely.  "  And  that  will  do  this  morning. 
You  can  go  to  the  mill.  The  meal's  nearly 
out." 

When  he  was  gone  I  called,  in  an  under 
tone  :  "  Georgiana  !  Come  to  the  window  ! 
Please  !  Oh,  Georgiana  !" 

But  the  song  went  on.  What  was  the 
matter  ?  I  could  not  endure  it.  There  was 
one  way  by  which  perhaps  she  could  be 
brought.  I  whistled  long  and  loud  again  and 
again.  The  curtains  parted  a  little  space. 

"  I  was  merely  whistling  to  the  bird,"  I  said. 

"I  knew  it,"  she  answered,  looking  as  I 
had  never  seen  her.  "  Whenever  you  speak 
to  him  your  voice  is  full  of  confidence  and  of 
love.  I  believe  in  it  and  like  to  hear  it." 

"What  do  you  mean,  Georgiana?"  I  cried, 
imploringly. 


124 


"Ah,  Adam  !"  she  said,  with  a  rush  of  feel 
ing.  It  was  the  first  time  she  had  ever  called 
me  by  name.  She  bent  her  face  down.  Over 
it  there  passed  a  look  of  sweetness  and  sad 
ness  indescribably  blended.  uAh,  Adam! 
you  have  asked  me  many  times  to  marry 
you !  Make  me  believe  once  that  you  love 
me  !  Make  me  feel  that  I  could  trust  myself 
to  you  for  life  !" 

"  What  else  can  I  do  ?"  I  answered,  stirred 
to  the  deepest  that  was  in  me,  throwing  my 
arms  backward,  and  standing  with  an  open 
breast  into  which  she  might  gaze. 

And  she  did  search  my  eyes  and  face  in 
silence. 

"  What  more,"  I  cried  again,  "  in  God's 
name  ?" 

She  rested  her  face  on  her  palm,  looking 
thoughtfully  across  the  yard.  Over  there  the 
red-bird  was  singing.  Suddenly  she  leaned 
down  towards  me.  Love  was  on  her  face 


125 


now.  But  her  eyes  held  mine  with  the  de 
termination  to  wrest  from  them  the  last  trutli 
they  might  contain,  and  her  voice  trembled 
with  doubt: 

"  Would  you  put  the  red-bird  in  a  cage  for 
me  ?  Would  you  be  willing  to  do  that  for 
me,  Adam?" 

At  those  whimsical,  cruel  words  I  shall 
never  be  able  to  reveal  all  that  I  felt — the 
surprise,  the  sorrow,  the  pain.  Scenes  of  boy 
hood  flashed  through  my  memory.  A  con 
science  built  up  through  years  of  experience 
stood  close  by  me  with  admonition.  I  saw 
the  love  on  her  face,  the  hope  with  which  she 
hung  upon  my  reply,  as  though  it  would  de 
cide  everything  between  us.  I  did  not  hesi 
tate  ;  my  hands  dropped  to  my  side,  the 
warmth  died  out  of  my  heart  as  out  of  spent 
ashes,  and  I  answered  her,  with  cold  re 
proach, 

"I— will— not!" 


126 

V 

The  color  died  out  of  her  face  also.  Her 
eyes  still  rested  on  mine,  but  now  with  pity 
ing  sadness. 

"I  feared  it,"  she  murmured,  audibly,  but 
to  herself,  and  the  curtains  fell  together. 

Four  days  have  passed.  Georgiana  has 
cast  me  off.  Her  curtains  are  closed  except 
when  she  is  not  there.  I  have  tried  to  see 
her;  she  excuses  herself.  I  have  written;  my 
letters  come  back  unread.  I  have  lain  in 
wait  for  her  on  the  streets;  she  will  not  talk 
with  me.  The  tie  between  us  has  been  sev 
ered.  With  her  it  could  never  have  been 
affection. 

And  for  what  ?  I  ask  myself  over  and 
over  and  over — for  what?  Was  she  jealous 
of  the  bird,  and  did  she  require  that  I  should 
put  it  out  of  the  way  ?  Sometimes  women 
do  that.  Did  she  take  that  means  of  forcing 
me  to  a  test  ?  Women  do  that.  Did  she 


127 


wish  to  show  her  power  over  me,  demanding 
the  one  thing  she  knew  would  be  the  hardest 
for  me  to  grant  ?  Women  do  that.  Did  she 
crave  the  pleasure  of  seeing  me  do  wrong  to 
humor  her  caprice  ?  Women  do  that.  But 
not  one  of  these  things  can  I  even  associate 
with  the  thought  of  Georgiana.  I  have  sought 
in  every  way  to  have  her  explain,  to  explain 
myself.  She  will  neither  give  nor  receive  an 
explanation. 

I  had  supposed  that  her  unnatural  request 
would  have  been  the  end  of  my  love,  but  it 
has  not ;  that  her  treatment  since  would  have 
fatally  stung  my  pride,  but  it  has  not.  I 
understand  neither ;  forgive  both  ;  love  her 
now  with  that  added  pain  which  comes  from 
a  man's  discovering  that  the  woman  dearest 
to  him  must  be  pardoned — pardoned  as  long 
as  he  shall  live. 

Never  since  have  I  been  able  to  look  at  the 
red-bird  with  the  old  gladness.  He  is  the  re- 


128 


minder  of  my  loss.  Reminder?  Do  I  ever 
forget  ?  Am  I  not  thinking  of  that  before 
his  notes  lash  my  memory  at  dawn  ?  All 
day  can  they  do  more  than  furrow  deeper 
the  channel  of  unf or^etf ulness  ?  Little  does 

o 

he  dream  what  my  friendship  for  him  has  cost 
me.  But  this  solace  I  have  at  heart — that  I 
was  not  even  tempted  to  betray  him. 

Three  days  more  have  passed.  No  sign 
yet  that  Georgiana  will  relent  soon  or  ever. 
Each  day  the  strain  becomes  harder  to  bear. 
My  mind  has  dwelt  upon  my  last  meeting 
with  her,  until  the  truth  about  it  wavers  upon 
my  memory  like  vague,  uncertain  shadows. 
She  doubted  my  love  for  her.  What  proof 
was  it  she  demanded  ?  I  must  stop  looking 
at  the  red-bird,  lying  here  and  there  under 
the  trees,  and  listening  to  him  as  he  sings 
above  me.  My  eyes  devour  him  whenever 
he  crosses  my  path  with  an  uncomprehended 


129 


fascination  that  is  pain.  How  gentle  he  has 
become,  and  how,  without  intending  it,  I  have 
deepened  the  perils  of  his  life  by  the  very 
gentleness  that  I  have  brought  upon  him. 
Twice  already  the  fate  of  his  species  has 
struck  at  him,  but  I  have  pledged  myself  to 
be  his  friend.  This  is  his  happiest  season  ;  a 
few  days  now,  and  he  will  hear  the  call  of 
his  young  in  the  nest. 

I  shut  myself  in  my  workshop  in  the  yard 
this  morning.  I  did  not  wish  my  servants 
to  know.  In  there  I  made  a  bird-trap  such 
as  I  had  often  used  when  a  boy.  And  late 
this  afternoon  I  went  to  town  and  bought  a 
bird-cage.  I  was  afraid  the  merchant  would 
misjudge  me,  and  explained.  He  scanned 
my  face  silently.  To-morrow  I  will  snare 
the  red -bird  down  behind  the  pines  long 
enough  to  impress  on  his  memory  a  life 
long  suspicion  of  every  such  artifice,  and 
then  I  will  set  him  free  again  in  his  wide 


130 


world  of  light.  Above  all  things,  I  must  see 
to  it  that  he  dbes  not  wound  himself  or  have 
the  least  feather  broken. 

It  is  far  past  midnight  now,  and  I  have 
not  slept  or  wished  for  slumber. 

Constantly  since  darkness  came  on  I  have- 
been  watching  Georgiana's  window  for  the 
light  of  her  candle,  but  there  has  been  no 
kindly  glimmer  yet.  The  only  radiance  shed 
upon  the  gloom  outside  comes  from  the  heav 
ens.  Great  cage  -  shaped  white  clouds  are 
swung  up  to  the  firmament,  and  within  these 
pale,  gentle,  imprisoned  lightnings  flutter  fee 
bly  to  escape,  fall  back,  rise,  and  try  again 
and  again,  and  fail. 

.  .  .  A  little  after  dark  this  evening  I  car 
ried  the  red-bird  over  to  Georgians  .  .  . 

I  have  seen  her  so  little  of  late  that  I  did 
not  know  she  had  been  away  from  home  for 
days.  But  she  was  expected  to-night,  or,  at 

\ 


131 


furthest,  to-morrow  morning.  I  left  the  bird 
with  the  servant  at  the  door,  who  could  hard 
ly  believe  what  he  saw.  As  I  passed  out 
of  my  front  gate  on  my  way  there,  the 
boy  who  returns  about  that  time  from  the 
pasture  for  his  cows  joined  me  as  I  hurried 
along,  attracted  by  the  fluttering  of  the  bird 
in  the  cage. 

"  Is  it  the  red-bird  ?  I  tried  to  ketch  him 
once,"  he  said,  with  entire  forgiveness  of  me, 
as  having  served  him  right,  "but  I  caught 
something  else.  I'll  never  forget  that  whip 
ping.  Oh,  but  wouldn't  I  like  to  have  him  ! 
Mr.  Moss,  you  wouldn't  mind  my  trying  to 
ketch  one  of  them  little  bits  o'  brown  fellows, 
would  you,  that  hops  around  under  them 
pine-trees  ?  They  ain't  no  account  to  nobody. 
Oh  my!  but  wouldn't  I  like  to  have  him  !  May 
I  bring  my  trap  some  time,  and  will  you  help 
me  to  ketch  one  o'  them  little  bits  o'  brown 
ones? 


132 


Several  times  to-night  I  have  gone  across 
and  listened  under  Georgiana's  window.  The 
servant  must  have  set  the  cage  in  her  room, 
for,  as  I  listened,  I  am  sure  I  heard  the  red- 
bird  beating  his  head  and  breast  against  the 
wires.  Awhile  ago  I  went  again,  and  did 
not  hear  him.  I  waited  a  long  time.  .  .  .  He 
may  be  quieted.  .  .  . 

Ah,  if  any  one  had  said  to  me  that  I  would 
ever  do  what  I  have  done,  with  what  full, 
deep  joy  could  I  Jiave  throttled  the  lie  in  his 
throat !  I  put  the  trap  under  one  of  the 
trees  where  I  have  been  used  to  feed  him. 
When  it  fell  he  was  not  greatly  frightened. 
He  clutched  the  side  of  it,  and  looked  out 
at  me.  My  own  mind  supplied  his  words: 
"  Help  !  I'm  caught !  Take  me  out !  You 
promised  !"  When  I  transferred  him  to 
the  cage,  for  a  moment  his  confidence  last 
ed  still.  He  mounted  the  perch,  shook 
his  plumage,  and  spoke  out  bravely  and 


133* 

cheerily.    .Then    all    at    once    came    on  the 
terror. 

The  dawn  came  on  this  morning  with  its 
old  splendor.  The  birds  in  my  yard,  as  of 
old,  poured  forth  their  songs.  But  those 
loud,  long,  clear,  melodious,  deep -hearted, 
passionate,  best-loved  notes !  As  the  chorus 
swelled  from  shadowy  shrubs  and  vines  to 
the  sparkling  tree -tops  I  listened  for  some 
sound  from  Georgiana's  room,  but  over  there 
I  saw  only  the  soft,  slow  flapping  of  the  white 
curtains  like  signals  of  distress. 

Towards  ten  o'clock,  wandering  restless,  I 
snatched  up  a  book,  which  I  had  no  wish  to 
read,  and  went  to  the  arbor  where  I  had  so 
often  discoursed  to  Sylvia  about  children's 
cruelty  to  birds.  Through  the  fluttering 
leaves  the  sunlight  dripped  as  a  weightless 
shower  of  gold,  and  the  long  pendants  of 
young  fruit  swayed  gently  in  their  cool 


134 


waxen  greenness.  Where  some  rotting 
planks  crossed  the  top  of  the  arbor  a  blue- 
jay  sat  on  her  coarse  nest ;  and  presently 
the  mate  flew  to  her  with  a  worm,  and  then 
talked  to  her  in  a  low  voice,  as  much  as  say 
ing  that  they  must  now  leave  the  place  for 
ever.  I  was  thinking  how  love  softens  even 
the  voice  of  this  file-throated  screamer,  when 
along  the  garden  walk  came  the  rustle  of  a 
woman's  clothes,  and,  springing  up,  I  stood 
face  to  face  with  Georgiana. 

"  What  have  you  done?"  she  implored. 

"  What  have  you  done  ?"  I  answered  as 
quickly. 

"  Oh,  Adam,  Adam  !  You  have  killed  it ! 
How  could  you  ?  How  could  you  ?" 

" . . .  Is  he  dead,Georgiana  ?  Is  he  dead  ? .  . ." 

I  forgot  everything  else,  and  pulling  my 
hat  down  over  my  eyes,  turned  from  her  in 
the  helpless  shock  of  silence  that  came  with 
those  irreparable  words. 


135 


Then,  in  ungovernable  anger,  suffering, 
remorse,  I  turned  upon  her  where  she  sat : 
"  It  is  you  who  killed  him  !  Why  do  you 
come  here  to  blame  me  ?  And  now  you  pre 
tend  to  be  sorry.  You  felt  no  pity  when 
pity  would  have  done  some  good.  Trifler! 
Hypocrite !" 

"  It  is  false  !"  she  cried,  her  words  flashing 
from  her  whole  countenance,  her  form  drawn 
up  to  repel  the  shock  of  the  blow. 

"  Did  you  not  ask  me  for  him  ?" 

"No!" 

"  Oh,  deny  it  all !  It  is  a  falsehood — in 
vented  by  me  on  the  spot.  You  know  noth 
ing  of  it !  You  did  not  ask  me  to  do  this ! 
And  when  I  have  yielded,  you  have  not  run 
to  reproach  me  here  and  to  cry,  c  How  could 
you  ?  How  could  you  ?'  " 

"  No  !     No  !     Every  word  of  it—" 

"  Untruth  added  to  it  all !  Oh,  that  I  should 
have  been  so  deceived,  blinded,  taken  in  !" 


138 


"Adam  /" 

"  Lovely  innocence  !  It  is  too  much  !  Go 
away!" 

"I  will  not  stand  this  any  longer!"  she 
cried.  "  I  will  go  away ;  but  not  till  I  have 
told  you  why  I  have  acted  as  I  have." 

"It  is  too  late  for  that !  I  do  not  care  to 
hear !" 

"  Then  you  shall  hear  !"  she  replied.  "  You 
shall  know  that  it  is  because  I  have  believed 
you  capable  of  speaking  to  me  as  you  have 
just  spoken  ;  believed  you  at  heart  unspar 
ing  and  unjust.  You  think  I  asked  you  to 
do  what  you  have  done  ?  No  !  I  asked  you 
whether  you  would  be  willing  to  do  it ;  and 
when  you  said  you  would  not,  I  saw  then — 
by  your  voice,  your  eyes,  your  whole  face 
and  manner  —  that  you  would.  Saw  it  as 
plainly  at  that  moment,  in  spite  of  your  de 
nial,  as  I  see  it  now — the  cruelty  in  you,  the 
unfaithfulness,  the  willingness  to  betray.  It 


137 


was  for  this  reason — not  because  I  heard  you 
refuse,  but  because  I  saw  you  consent — that 
I  could  not  forgive  you." 

She  paused  abruptly  and  looked  across  into 
my  face.  What  she  may  now  have  read  in 
it  I  do  not  know.  Then  anger  swept  her  on: 

"How  often  had  I  not  heard  you  bitter 
and  contemptuous  towards  people  because 
they  are  treacherous,  cruel !  How  often  have 
you  talked  of  your  love  of  nature,  of  our 
inhumanity  towards  lower  creatures!  But 
what  have  you  done  ? 

"You  set  your  fancy  upon  one  of  these 
creatures,  lie  in  wait  for  it,  beset  it  with 
kindness,  persevere  in  overcoming  its  wild- 
ness.  You  are  amused,  delighted,  proud  of 
your  success.  One  day — you  remember  ? — it 
sang  as  you  had  always  wished  to  hear  it.  It 
annoyed  you,  and  you  threw  a  stone  at  it. 
With  a  little  less  angry  aim  you  would  have 
killed  it.  I  have  never  seen  anything  more 


138 


inhuman.  How  do  I  know  that  some  day  you 
would  not  be  tired  of  me,  and  throw  a  stone 
at  me  f  When  a  woman  submits  to  this  once, 
she  will  have  them  thrown  at  her  whenever 
she  sings  at  the  wrong  time,  and  she  will  nev 
er  know  when  the  right  time  is. 

"  Then  you  thought  you  were  asked  to 
sacrifice  it,  and  now  you  have  done  that. 
How  do  I  know  that  some  day  you  might  not 
be  tempted  to  sacrifice  me?"  She  paused, 
her  voice  breaking,  and  remained  silent,  as  if 
unable  to  get  beyond  that  thought. 

"  If  you  have  finished,"  I  said,  very  quietly, 
"  I  have  something  to  say  to  you,  and  we  need 
not  meet  after  this. 

"I  trapped  the  bird ;  you  trapped  me.  I 
understood  you  to  ask  something  of  me,  to 
cast  me  off  when  I  refused  it.  Such  was  my 
faith  in  you  that  beneath  your  words  I  did 
not  look  for  a  snare.  How  hard  it  was  for 
me  to  forgive  you  what  you  asked  is  my  own 


139 


affair  now;  but  forgive  you  I  did.  How  hard 
it  was  to  grant  it,  that  also  is  now,  and  will 
always  be,  my  own  secret.  I  beg  you  merely 
to  believe  this:  knowing  it  to  be  all  that  you 
have  described — and  far  more  than  you  can 
ever  understand — still,  I  did  it.  Had  you  de 
manded  of  me  something  worse,  I  should  have 
granted  that.  If  you  think  a  man  will  not  do 
wrong  for  a  woman,  you  are  mistaken.  If 
you  think  men  always  love  the  wrong  that 
they  do  for  the  women  whom  they  love,  you 
are  mistaken  again. 

"You  have  held  up  my  faults  to  me.  I 
knew  them  before.  I  have  not  loved  them. 
Do  not  think  that  I  am  trying  to  make  a 
virtue  out  of  anything  I  say ;  but  in  all  my 
thoughts  of  you  there  has  been  no  fault  of 
yours  that  I  have  not  hidden  from  my  sight, 
and  have  not  resolved  as  best  I  could  never 
to  see.  Yet  do  not  dream  that  I  have  found 
you  faultless. 


140 


"You  fear  I  might  sacrifice  you  to  some 
thing  else.  It  is  possible.  Every  man  re 
sists  temptation  only  to  a  certain  point ; 
every  man  has  his  price.  It  is  a  risk  you 
will  run  with  any. 

"If  you  doubt  that  a  man  is  capable  of 
sacrificing  one  thing  that  he  loves  to  another 
that  he  loves  more,  tempt  him,  lie  in  wait  for 
his  weakness,  ensnare  him  in  the  toils  of  his 
greater  passion,  and  learn  the  truth. 

"  I  make  no  defence — believe  all  that  you 
say.  But  had  you  loved  me,  I  might  have 
been  all  this,  and  it  would  have  been  nothing." 

With  this  I  walked  slowly  out  of  the 
arbor,  but  Georgiana  stood  beside  me.  Her 
light  touch  was  on  my  arm. 

"Let  me  see  things  clearly!" 

"  You  have  a  lifetime  in  which  to  see 
things  clearly,"  I  answered.  "How  can  that 
concern  me  now  ?"  And  I  passed  on  into  the 
house. 


141 


During  the  morning  I  wandered  restless. 
For  a  while  I  lay  on  the  grass  down  behind 
the  pines.  How  deep  and  clear  are  the  cov 
ered  springs  of  memory !  All  at  once  it  was 
a  morning  in  my  boyhood  on  my  father's 
farm.  I,  a  little  Saul  of  Tarsus  among  the 
birds,  was  on  my  way  to  the  hedge-rows  and 
woods,  as  to  Damascus,  breathing  out  threat- 
enings  and  slaughter.  Then  suddenly  the 
childish  miracle,  which  no  doubt  had  been 
preparing  silently  within  my  nature,  wrought 
itself  out ;  for  from  the  distant  forest  trees, 
from  the  old  orchard,  from  thicket  and  fence, 
from  the  wide  green  meadows,  and  down  out 
of  the  depths  of  the  blue  sky  itself,  a  vast 
chorus  of  innocent  creatures  sang  to  my  new 
ly  opened  ears  the  same  words  :  "  Why  per- 
secutest  thou  me  ?"  One  sang  it  with  in 
dignation  ;  another  with  remonstrance ;  still 
another  with  resignation;  others  yet  with 
ethereal  sadness  or  wild  elusive  pain.  Once 

\ 


142 


more  the  house-wren  met  me  at  the  rotting 
gate-post,  and  cried  aloud,  " per-se-cu-test — 
per-se-cu-test  — per-se-cu-test  — per-se-cu-test  /" 
And  as  I  peeped  into  the  brush-pile,  again  the 
brown  thrush,  building  within,  said,  "  thou — 
thou — thou  /" 

Through  all  the  years  since  I  had  thought 
myself  changed,  and  craved  no  greater  glory 
than  to  be  accounted  the  chief  of  their  apos 
tles.  But  now  I  was  stained  once  more  with 
the  old  guilt,  and  once  more  I  could  hear  the 
birds  in  my  yard  singing  that  old,  old  chorus 
against  man's  inhumanity. 

Towards  the  middle  of  the  afternoon  I  went 
away  across  the  country — by  any  direction ;  I 
cared  not  what.  On  my  way  back  I  passed 
through  a  large  rear  lot  belonging  to  my 
neighbors,  and  adjoining  my  own,  in  which 
is  my  stable.  There  has  lately  been  import 
ed  into  this  part  of  Kentucky  from  England 
the  much-prized  breed  of  the  beautiful  white 


143 


Berkshire.  As  I  crossed  the  lot,  near  the 
milk-trough,  ash-heap,  and  parings  of  fruit 
and  vegetables  thrown  from  my  neighbor's 
kitchen,  I  saw  a  litter  of  these  pigs  having 
their  awkward  sport  over  some  strange  red 
plaything,  which  one  after  another  of  them 
would  shake  with  all  its  might,  root  and  tear 
at,  or  tread  into  greater  shapelessness.  It 
was  all  there  was  left  of  him. 

I  entered  my  long  yard.  If  I  could  have 
been  spared  the  sight  of  that !  The  sun  was 
setting.  Around  me  was  the  last  peace  ami 
beauty  of  the  world.  Through  a  narrow  av 
enue  of  trees  I  could  see  my  house,  and  on  its 
clustering  vines  fell  the  angry  red  of  the  sun 
darting  across  the  cool  green  fields. 

The  last  hour  of  light  touches  the  birds  as 
it  touches  us.  When  they  sing  in  the  morn 
ing,  it  is  with  the  happiness  of  the  earth;  but 
as  the  shadows  fall  strangely  about  them, 
and  the  helplessness  of  the  night  comes  on, 

\  ' 


144 


their  voices  seem  to  be  lifted  up  like  the  lof 
tiest  poetry  of  the  human  spirit,  with  sympa 
thy  for  realities  and  mysteries  past  all  under 
standing. 

A  great  choir  was  hymning  now.  On  the 
tops  of  the  sweet  old  honeysuckles  the  cat 
birds;  robins  in  the  low  boughs  of  maples; 
on  the  high  limb  of  the  elm  the  silvery- 
throated  lark,  who  had  stopped  as  he  passed 
from  meadow  to  meadow;  on  a  fence  rail  of 
the  distant  wheat-field  the  quail — and  many 
another.  I  walked  to  and  fro,  receiving  the 
voice  of  each  as  a  spear  hurled  at  my  body. 
The  sun  sank.  The  shadows  rushed  on  and 
deepened.  Suddenly,  as  I  turned  once  more 
in  my  path,  I  caught  sight  of  the  figure  of 
Georgiana  moving  straight  towards  me  from 
the  direction  of  the  garden.  She  was  bare 
headed,  dressed  in  white ;  and  she  advanced 
over  the  smooth  lawn,  through  evergreens 
and  shrubs,  with  a  gentle  grace  and  dignity 


145 

of  movement  such  as  I  had  never  beheld.  I 
kept  my  weary  pace,  and  when  she  came  up 
I  did  not  lift  my  eyes. 

"  Adam !"  she  said,  with  gentle  reproach. 
I  stood  still  then,  but  with  my  face  turned 
away. 

"Forgive  me!"  All  girlishness  was  gone 
out  of  her  voice.  It  was  the  woman  at  last. 

I  turned  my  face  farther  from  her,  and  we 
stood  in  silence. 

"  I  have  suffered  enough,  Adam,"  she 
pleaded. 

I  answered  quietly,  doggedly,  for  there  was 
nothing  left  in  me  to  appeal  to : 

"  I  am  glad  we  can  part  kindly.  .  .  . 
Neither  of  us  may  care  much  for  the  kind 
ness  now,  but  we  will  not  be  sorry  hereafter. 
.  .  .  The  quarrels,  the  mistakes,  the  right 
and  the  wrong  of  our  lives,  the  misunder 
standings — they  are  so  strange,  so  pitiful,  so 

full  of  pain,  and  come  so  soon  to  nothing." 
10 


146 


And  I  lifted  my  hat,  and  took  the  path 
towards  my  house. 

There  was  a  point  ahead  where  it  divided, 
the  other  branch  leading  towards  the  little 
private  gate  through  which  Georgiana  had 
come.  Just  before  reaching  the  porch  I 
looked  that  way,  with  the  idea  that  I  should 
see  Georgiana's  white  figure  moving  across 
the  lawn;  but  I  discovered  that  she  was  fol 
lowing  me.  Mounting  my  door -steps,  I 
turned.  She  had  paused  on  the  threshold.  I 
waited.  At  length  she  said,  in  a  voice  low 
and  sorrowful : 

"And  you  are  not  going  to  forgive  me, 
Adam?" 

"I  do  forgive  you!"  The  silence  fell  and 
lasted.  I  no  longer  saw  her  face.  At  last  her 
despairing  voice  barely  reached  me  again  : 

"  And— is— that— all  ?" 

I  had  no  answer  to  make,  and  sternly  wait 
ed  for  her  to  go. 


147 


A  moment  longer  she  lingered,  then  turned 
slowly  away;  and  I  watched  her  figure  grow 
ing  fainter  and  fainter  till  it  was  lost.  I 
sprang  after  her ;  my  voice  rang  out  hollow, 
and  broke  with  terror  and  pain  and  longing : 

"  Georgiana !     Georgiana !" 

"  Oh,  Adam,  Adam  /"  I  heard  her  cry,  with 
low,  piercing  tenderness,  as  she  ran  back  to 
me  through  the  darkness. 

When  we  separated  we  lighted  fresh  can- 
dJes  and  set  them  in  our  windows,  to  burn  a 
pure  pathway  of  flame  across  the  intervening 
void.  -Henceforth  we  are  like  poor  little 
foolish  children,  so  sick  and  lonesome  in  the 
night  without  one  another.  Happy,  happy 
night  to  come  when  one  short  candle  will  do 
for  us  both ! 

.  .  .  Ah,  but  the  long,  long  silence  of  the 
trees!  .  .  . 


BY  JAMES    LANE   ALLEN 


AFTERMATH.  Part  Second  of  "A  Kentucky  Car 
dinal."  Square  32mo,  Cloth,  Ornamental,  $i  oo. 

How  sweet  and  clean  and  healthy  such  a  story  as  "  Af 
termath."  ...  It  is  delightful  reading. — N.  Y.  Press. 

A  KENTUCKY  CARDINAL.    Illustrated  by  ALBERT  j 
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Mr.  James  Lane  Allen  has  never  shown  more  delicacy 
and  refinement  of  feeling  or  a  more  sympathetic  apprecia 
tion  of  the  beauties  of  nature. — N.  Y.  Tribune. 

THE  BLUE -GRASS  REGION  OF  KENTUCKY, 

and  Other  Kentucky  Articles.    Illustrated.   8vo,  Cloth, 

$2    50. 

Mr.  Allen  has  a  poetic  touch,  a  full  vocabulary,  a  fre 
quent  felicity  of  phrase.— Critic,  N.  Y. 

The  attractions  of  the  sketches  are  in  their  simplicity 
and  realism.  Nothing  is  oversaid  or  overdrawn. — Chi 
cago  Inter-Ocean. 

FLUTE  AND  VIOLIN,  and  Other  Kentucky  Tales 
and  Romances.  Illustrated.  Post  8vo,  Cloth,  Orna 
mental,  $i  50;  Silk  Binding,  $2  25. 

Shows  that  there  was  an  imaginative  height  and  a  poetic 
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mailed  by  the  publishers,  postage  prepaid,  on  receipt  of  the  price. 


BY  MARY  E.  WILKINS. 


PEMBROKE.     A  Novel.      Illustrated.      i6mo, 
Cloth,  Ornamental,  $i  50. 

JANE  FIELD.     A  Novel.     Illustrated.     i6mo, 
Cloth,  Ornamental,  $i  25. 

GILES  COREY,  YEOMAN.    A  Play.    Illustrated. 
32mo,  Cloth,  Ornamental,  50  cents. 

A  NEW  ENGLAND   NUN,  and  Other  Stories. 
i6mo,  Cloth,  Ornamental,  $i  25. 

A    HUMBLE    ROMANCE,    and    Other    Stories. 
l6mo,  Cloth,  Ornamental,  $i  25. 

YOUNG  LUCRETIA,  and  Other  Stories.     Illus 
trated.     Post  Svo,  Cloth,  Ornamental,  $i  25. 

Always  there  is  a  freedom  from  commonplace,  and  a 
power  to  hold  the  interest  to  the  close,  which  is  owing, 
not  to  a  trivial  ingenuity,  but  to  the  spell  which  her  per 
sonages  cast  over  the  reader's  mind  as  soon  as  they  come 
within  his  ken. — Atlantic  Monthly. 

A  gallery  of  striking  studies  in  the  humblest  quarters 
of  American  country  life.  No  one  has  dealt  with  this 
kind  of  life  better  than  Miss  Wilkins.  Nowhere  are 
there  to  be  found  such  faithful,  delicately  drawn,  sympa 
thetic,  tenderly  humorous  pieces. — N.  Y.  Tribune. 


PUBLISHED  BY  HARPER  &  BROTHERS,  NEW  YORK. 
g^lp"  For  sale  by  all  booksellers,  or  will  be  sent  by  mail, 
Postage  prepaid,  to  any  part  of  the  United  States,  Can> 
ada,  or  Mexico,  on  receipt  of  the  price- 


BY  CONSTANCE  F.  WOOLSON, 

HORACE  CHASE.     i6mo,  Cloth,  $i  25. 
JUPITER  LIGHTS.     i6mo,  Cloth,  $i  25. 
EAST  ANGELS.     i6mo,  Cloth,  $i  25. 
ANNE.     Illustrated.     i6mo,  Cloth,  $x  25. 
FOR  THE  MAJOR.     i6mo,  Cloth,  $i  oo. 
CASTLE  NOWHERE.     i6mo,  Cloth,  $i  oo. 
RODMAN  THE  KEEPER.     i6mo,  Cloth,  $i  oo. 


One  of  the  most  remarkable  qualities  of  Miss  Wool- 
son's  work  was  its  intense  picturesqueness.  Few  writers 
have  shown  equal  beauty  in  expressing  the  poetry  of 
landscape . — Springfield  Republican. 

Characterization  is  Miss  Woolson's  forte.  Her  men 
and  women  are  original,  breathing,  and  finely  contrasted 
creations. — Chicago  Tribune. 

Delightful  touches  justify  those  who  see  many  points 
of  analogy  between  Miss  Woolson  and  George  Eliot. — 
N.  Y.  Times. 

Miss  Woolson's  power  of  describing  natural  scenery 
and  strange,  out-of-the-way  phases  of  American  life  is 
undoubted.  One  cannot  well  help  being  fascinated  by 
her  stories. — Churchman,  N.  Y. 

Miss  Woolson  is  one  of  the  few  novelists  of  the  day 
who  know  how  to  make  conversation,  how  to  individual 
ize  the  _  speakers,  how  to  exclude  rabid  realism  without 
falling  into  literary  formality. — N.  Y.  Tribune. 

PUBLISHED  BY  HARPER  &  BROTHERS,  NEW  YORK. 


ny  of  the  above  works  will  be  sent  by  mail,  post- 
age  prepaid,  to  any  part  of  the  United  States,  Canarf"  or 
Mexico,  on  receipt  of  the  price. 


HARPER'S  AMERICAN   ESSAYISTS. 

With  Portraits.     i6mo,  Cloth,  $i  oo  each. 


OTHER  TIMES   AND   OTHER   SEASONS.      By 

LAURENCE  HUTTON. 
A.    LITTLE    ENGLISH    GALLERY.      By  LOUISE 

IMOGEN  GUINEY. 
LITERARY  AND  SOCIAL  SILHOUETTES.     By 

HjALMAR  HjORTH   BOYESEN. 

STUDIES  OF   THE   STAGE.     By  BRANDER  MAT 
THEWS. 
AMERICANISMS  AND  BRITICISMS,  with  Other 

Essays  on  Other  Isms.     By  BRANDER  MATTHEWS. 
AS  WE  GO.     By  CHARLES  DUDLEY  WARNER.     With 

Illustrations. 
AS    WE    WERE    SAYING.     By  CHARLES   DUDLEY 

WARNER.     With  Illustrations. 
FROM  THE  EASY  CHAIR.    By  GEORGE  WILLIAM 

CURTIS. 
FROM   THE   EASY   CHAIR.      Second  Series.     By 

GEORGE  WILLIAM  CURTIS. 
FROM   THE    EASY  CHAIR.      Third  Series.      By 

GEORGE  WILLIAM  CURTIS. 
CRITICISM  AND   FICTION.     By  WILLIAM  DEAN 

HOWELLS. 

FROM  THE  BOOKS  OF  LAURENCE  HUTTON. 
CONCERNING  ALL  OF  US.     By  THOMAS  WENT- 

WORTH   HlGGINSON. 

THE  WORK  OF  JOHN  RUSKIN.      By  CHARLES 

WALDSTEIN. 
PICTURE  AND  TEXT.     By  HERNY  JAMES.    With 

Illustrations.  

PUBLISHED  BY  HARPER  &  BROTHERS,  NEW  YORK. 

Cr/3  For  sale  by  all  booksellers,  or  -will  be  mailed  by  *Jte  pub 
lishers,  postage  prepaid,  on  receipt  of  the  price. 


14  DAY  USE 

J3TURN  TO  DESK  FROM  WHICH  BORROWED 

LOAN  DEPT. 

This  book  is  due  on  the  last  date  stamped  below  or 

op  ^e  date  to  which  renewed 
Renewed  books  are  subject  to  Sdiate  recall. 

..AUG23196633 


DECEIVED 

• • 

AUG9    '66 -12  AM! 


